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THE 

BOYS AND GIRLS 

OF THE 

WHITE HOUSE 

BY 
AGNES CARR SAGE 

Author of "A Little Colonial Dame," "A Little Daughter of 
the Revolution," eic. 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



.5 132 



Copyright 1909. by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All rights reserved 






September, 1909 



TO THE BEST OF COUSINS 

MRS. CLEMENT MOORE and ALICE M. BRITTAN 

IN MEMORY OF THE DAYS WHEN WE WERE ALL 

GIRLS TOGETHER, IN A BIG HOSPITABLE WHITE 

HOUSE, THIS VOLUME IS 

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY 

THE AUTHOR 



INTRODUCTION 

THE HOMESTEAD OF THE NATION 

LIKE a fairy tale runs the quaint legend 
which sheds a glamour of romance over 
the little tract of land known as the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, the hub, as it were, of our re- 
public, from which the United States radiate 
out, in ever-increasing numbers. 

Interesting, too, is the story of the City of 
Laws, during the hundred and more years in 
which it has been growing from a mere squatter 
settlement into a vast town of most " magnifi- 
cent distances," whose power reaches around 
the world. 

Described in ancient chronicles as " The most 
healthful and pleasantest region in all this coun- 
try," it was a capital long before George Wash- 
ington paced off the Federal City; for there the 
mighty Algonquin tribe of American Indians 
came to hold their councils of war, and there 
Powhatan — the father of Pocahontas — with 
his eighty fiercest chiefs, donned their battle 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

paint or smoked the calumet — the great pipe 
of peace. 

" Nacochtank," they called this wigwam seat 
of government while, later, when the red men 
had given way to English ploughmen and wood- 
choppers, an old prophecy was often recalled 
that in this locality there was destined, some 
day, to arise the capital of a very strong and 
powerful nation. 

Legendary lore says that in 1663, one Fran- 
cis Pope was vouchsafed a vision of the future, 
in which he beheld a stately house of parlia- 
ment crowning what is now Capitol Hill. With 
faith in this dream, then, he straightway pur- 
chased the eminence and made himself " Pope 
of Rome," by naming it after the Imperial Ital- 
ian City, while the sluggish stream at its base 
he called the " Tiber." 

But the world moved slowly in those early 
Colonial days, and the visionary Francis passed 
away before he had seen the fulfilment of his 
revelation, although he died in the firm belief 
that his wooded hill would yet be the site of a 
grand edifice, devoted to the laws and law- 
makers of a mighty empire. 

Handed down from mouth to mouth, this 
fantastic fable was finally told to General Wash- 
ington and his chosen architect, Major L'En- 
viii 



The Homestead of the Nation 

fant, when they met the owners of the land, in 
an old-fashioned tavern at Georgetown, to ne- 
gotiate for the transfer of the property to the 
Government, and may have inspired them with 
fresh hope for the success of the infant republic, 
although, at that period, naught but forest trees 
covered the hill called " Rome " and the " Ti- 
ber " was derisively known as " Goose Creek." 
This last is said to still flow on as a modern 
sewer. 

George Washington, however, had noted and 
loved this beautiful spot from the time he was 
only an obscure lieutenant with the Army, on 
Observatory Hill, and it was his influence which 
swayed the council to select that site; he who 
drew up the agreement; and he who planned the 
capital city which Pierre Charles L'Enfant laid 
out on paper and on such a grand scale that 
most people considered it wild and chimerical. 

The artistic Frenchman was shortly after re- 
moved, and Andrew Ellicott of Philadelphia 
put in his place, but the fair city of dreams, as. 
it stands to-day, certainly had its origin in the- 
first architect's daring, creative brain. 

Now, then, at last, Pope's shadowy vision 

was crystallized into reality. The dome of the 

Capitol, designed by Dr. William Thornton,; 

arose on the summit of " Rome," while a mile 

ix 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

and a half away, a home for the rulers of the 
nation was erected on Pennsylvania Avenue, the 
street which has well been termed the " Via 
Sacra " of the new world. 

It was Captain James Hobon, an Irishman, 
who planned the White House, modelling it 
after the palace of the Duke of Leinster, in 
Dublin; and the corner stone was laid on the 
13th of October, 1792. Constructed of Vir- 
ginia freestone, painted white, it has a front- 
age of one hundred and seventy feet and is 
eighty-six feet deep, with a circular porch in 
the rear and a colonnade in front. Burned by 
the British in 18 14, it was rebuilt in the self- 
same manner, almost a replica of the original 
mansion, and here, ever since the days of John 
Adams, our Presidents and their families have 
lived and moved and had their political being. 

Within its snowy walls, a myriad joys and a 
myriad sorrows have been known. Little souls 
have been born; great ones passed away. The 
famous East Room, eighty feet long by forty 
feet wide, and the pretty Blue Room, have each 
been the scene of many a wedding and many a 
christening; while, as we look back across the 
nineteenth century, we see a bright, blithe band 
of young Americans, the boys and girls of the 
historic White House, who have come and gone, 
x 



The Homestead of the Nation 

flitting through the gardens, awaking the 
echoes in the long corridors with their fresh 
ringing voices and ever, by their presence, mak- 
ing a more cheery and homelike place of the big 
stone Homestead of the Nation. 



XI 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

Introduction — The Homestead of the Na- 
tion vii 

I. Washington's Adopted Children ... i 

II. Four Little Yankees 26 

III. A Band of Young Virginians 38 

IV. The " Prince of America " and the Payne 

Girls 55 

V. The Aristocratic Monroes 72 

VI. The Cosmopolitan Adams Family ... 81 

VII. Indian Lincoyer and the Merry Andrews 93 

VIII. The Van Buren Boys 108 

IX. Tippecanoe and His Family, Too . . . .115 

X. An Octave of F. F. V.'s 120 

XI. " Miss Betty " Taylor 131 

XII. Clever Mary Fillmore 138 

XIII. The Bonny Lass of Lancaster .... 145 

XIV The Lincoln Lads 155 

XV. Some Little People From Tennessee . . 169 

XVI. The Young Grants 182 

XVII. A " Buckeye " Family 201 

XVIII. The Garfield Children 218 

XIX. Nellie Arthur and Her Brother .... 240 

XX. A President's Ward 252 

XXI. " Baby McKee " and His Sister .... 266 

XXII. The Cleveland Babies and a Childless 

Couple 276 

XXIII. A Bunch of Knickerbockers 285 

XXIV. The Household of Taft 315 



THE BOYS AND GIRLS OF THE 
WHITE HOUSE 



THE 

BOYS AND GIRLS OF THE 

WHITE HOUSE 

CHAPTER I 

Washington's adopted children 

SOMEONE has said that " George Wash- 
ington was never given sons and daugh- 
ters of his own, in order that he might be 
the Father of his Country " ; but he was a parent 
to more than the land of his birth, so warmly 
did the children and grandchildren of his wife 
entwine themselves about his heart and grow 
into his life and love; while to them, our first 
President ever proved the wisest and kindest of 
stepfathers. 

Little John and Martha Parke Custis were 
but six and four years of age when their mother, 
the rich and attractive widow, Martha Dan- 
dridge Custis, married gallant Colonel Wash- 
ington. Oddly enough, too, the pleasant home 
on the York River where these young folks were 
I 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

born was known far and wide as the " White 
House." 

The great Virginian plantation, as well as 
the " Six Chimney House " in Williamsburg, 
belonged to their own, though scarcely-remem- 
bered, father, and was by him bequeathed to his 
wife and little ones, and in these two places they 
dwelt during the mother's widowhood. Some 
writers, too, have endeavored to trace a fanci- 
ful connection between the name of the Custis 
homestead and that of the White House in the 
District of Columbia, saying that Washington 
wished the official residence of the Presidents of 
the United States to be so called in memory of 
the lovely spot in which his happiness was con- 
summated; but there seems no foundation for 
this romantic theory. 

The fact remains, though, that young Jacky 
and Patsy — as they were fondly nicknamed — 
were a veritable boy and girl of the White 
House, although they never saw the famous ex- 
ecutive mansion, which was not then even 
dreamed of. 

But it was a happy January day for them, 
when the tall, military man came to their ances- 
tral home and there was a gay colonial wedding 
at Twelfth Night, celebrated with true, old- 
time Virginia hospitality, and to which fair 

2 



Washington's Adopted Children 

dames and distinguished men nocked from miles 
around. 

The remainder of the winter was passed in 
the quaint, old city of Williamsburg, then the 
capital, and which was laid out with its streets 
forming a W and M, in honor of William and 
Mary, who in 1689 had been proclaimed the 
Lord and Lady of Virginia. But when the 
flowers bloomed in the spring they were whisked 
away, in a chariot and four, to beautiful Mount 
Vernon, that now historic house, filled with mas- 
sive furniture and odd bric-a-brac, where they 
found acres of rich land laid out in lawns, fruit 
orchards and flower gardens; a blue, rippling 
river to fish and wade in, and a great enclosed 
portico, more than ninety feet long, that was 
the finest playroom in the world, for a rainy 
day. 

Here, then, they lived, during the happy 
hours of childhood; Martha, who is recorded as 
" a lady-like child of winning ways," studying 
the very simple lessons thought necessary for 
girls a hundred and fifty years ago, working 
samplers in " cross, tent and satin stitch," and 
practising on the harpsichord, beneath Lady 
Washington's gentle but firm tuition, and mean- 
while growing into the charitable little " dark 
lady," as she was called from her brunette com- 
3 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

plexion, who, as years increased, might often 
be seen on her pony going about on errands of 
mercy to the cottages of the poor and afflicted. 

Master John, on the contrary, was his step- 
father's daily companion, learning from him 
military tactics and engineering, while together 
they enjoyed many a glorious gallop or tracked 
some wily Reynard to the death. As the great 
man once noted in his diary, " Went a-hunting 
with Jacky Custis and catched a fox; after three 
hours' chase found it in the creek." 

In the evening, guests were frequently at 
Mount Vernon, but if there were none, the 
master was fond of reading aloud, or one can 
imagine him, on a stormy w r inter night, by the 
big log fire, drawing Jacky and Patsy to his 
knee and telling them stories of his own boy- 
hood, of the pranks of the pupils at Master 
Hobby's school, or how he once attempted to 
tame a wild colt and the dire result thereof. 
Much better, too, does this true incident set 
forth the honesty and manliness of Washing- 
ton's youthful character, than the popular and 
rather mythical tradition of the cherry tree and 
the hatchet. 

George was but a lad in his early teens when 
one summer morning he, together with two or 
three boys who were visiting him, strolled out 
4 



Washington's Adopted Children 

to see his mother's colts, among which was one 
very valuable but very vicious young horse that 
was particularly prized by Mary Washington 
because it was of a pedigreed race which her 
husband had bred. Never did a brute beast 
display a more fierce and ungovernable temper, 
and it was generally believed that it could never 
be tamed. 

Youth, however, is daring, and presently 
George suggested that if his companions would 
help him catch the colt and force a bridle bit 
into his mouth, he would mount him. They 
readily agreed and before the sorrel compre- 
hended what was intended, he was driven into 
a corner, the bridle was adjusted and our future 
President on his back. But then a terrible 
struggle ensued. His lordly horseship wildly 
reared and plunged and rushed madly about 
the fields, but the boy stuck firmly on his 
bare back and curbed him with his strong, 
young arms. In vain the colt tried to dislodge 
his rider, and finally, making one last, desperate 
effort, he burst a blood vessel and fell, dying on 
the ground. 

At this catastrophe the lads were frightened 

and dismayed beyond measure, for every one 

stood deeply in awe of Madam Washington, 

and " what to say to her " was the question all 

5 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

but George were debating when they were sum- 
moned in to breakfast. 

The first question, too, of the lady of the 
house was, " Pray, young gentlemen, have you 
seen my blooded colts in your rambles ? I hope 
they are well taken care of; my favorite, I am 
told, is as large as his sire." 

At this the guests were overcome with con- 
fusion, but when the question was repeated, 
George spoke up and said: "Your favorite, 
Madam, is dead." 

"Dead!" she exclaimed. "How has this 
happened? " 

" That sorrel horse," replied the brave boy, 
" has long been considered ungovernable and be- 
yond the power of man to tame. This morn- 
ing we forced a bit into his mouth. I mounted 
him and rode him around the pasture, but in a 
desperate struggle for the mastery he broke a 
blood vessel, fell under me, and is now no 
more." 

For an instant the mother's cheek flushed 
with anger, but a moment later, she remarked, 
with the calmness and justice for which she was 
noted, " It is well ; but while I regret the loss 
of my favorite animal, I rejoice in my son who 
always speaks the truth." 
6 



Washington's Adopted Children 

Doubtless this anecdote was a popular one 
at the Mount Vernon fireside; but no matter 
how entertaining the reading or conversation, 
the family party always broke up and retired as 
soon as the tall clock chimed the hour of nine. 

Surrounded by every comfort, ten years rolled 
smoothly and happily on, the only shadow be- 
ing the delicate health of young Martha, who 
had inherited from her father the dread seeds 
of consumption. Much was hoped from a visit 
to the Warm Springs of Virginia, but nothing 
was of any avail, and one summer day she 
faded away quite suddenly, like the sweet June 
roses blooming outside at the time. 

Washington, who was deeply attached to the 
gentle girl, hastened home from his public du- 
ties at Williamsburg, only just in time to have 
her breathe her last in his arms, and to him she 
bequeathed all her property, which was no in- 
considerable fortune. 

The negroes, as well as the family, were heart- 
broken at the loss of lovely Patsy, while the fol- 
lowing year Mrs. Washington was still too sad 
to attend the wedding of her son; for in Febru- 
ary John suddenly abandoned his studies at 
King's College, New York, in order to marry 
young Eleanor Calvert, a maiden of " sweet 
7 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

sixteen " and a grandchild of Lord Baltimore. 
Ready enough, though, was she to welcome 
the girlish bride and sent her this note: 

" My dear Nelly : 

" God took from Me a Daughter when June 
roses were blooming. He has given me another 
daughter, about her Age, when Winter Winds 
are blooming, to warm my Heart again. I am 
as Happy as one so Afflicted and so Blest can 
be. Pray receive my Benediction and a Wish 
that You may long live the Loving Wife of 
my happy Son and a Loving Daughter of 
" Your Affectionate Mother, 

" M. Washington." 

The first wish was fulfilled for nine years, but 
nine very anxious years, not only at Mount Ver- 
non, but also at the home of the young couple 
at Abingdon on the Potomac; for a greater part 
of the time, both Washington and his ward were 
away, fighting for American independence. 

Scarcely, too, had Cornwallis surrendered, 
when a messenger arrived with news that " Col- 
onel John Custis was dying of camp fever 
at Eltham, near Yorktown," and he shortly fol- 
lowed his sister, leaving his wife a widow at 
twenty-five, and four small children, the young- 
est two of whom, Eleanor Parke Custis, two 
8 



Washington's Adopted Children 

and a half years old, and George Washington 
Parke Custis, a dimpled baby of six months, 
were legally adopted by General and Lady 
Washington. 

So once again the old rooms at Mount Ver- 
non rang with merry childish voices and a new 
generation filled the places of " dear Jacky " 
and the little " dark lady." The grandparents, 
however, found dark-eyed, curly-headed Nelly 
a very different child from her tractable Aunt 
Patsy, for the gay, saucy lassie cared far more 
for play and romping than for books and mu- 
sic, while she rebelled outright at having her 
head dressed each day with feathers and ribbons. 
As she grew older, her foster father, to encour- 
age her, presented her with a fine harpsichord, 
costing one thousand dollars; but this only 
proved an instrument of torture to the young 
lady when forced to practise, and her brother 
records that " She would cry and play and play 
and cry for hours." The detested harpsichord 
still graces Mount Vernon, having been gener- 
ously sent back there by Mrs. Lee after the 
purchase of the historic spot by the Women of 
America. 

The blond, little boy was undoubtedly his 
grandmother's favorite, and Nelly often said, 
11 It was well grandpa and not grandma was 
9 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

educating Washington, for grandma certainly 
would spoil him." 

But the petted darlings had good times on 
the dear old plantation, where their mother 
often stayed with them, as well as their two 
elder sisters, Elizabeth and Martha, and both 
accompanied Lady Washington on her tri- 
umphal journey to New York a month after 
her husband's inauguration as first President of 
the United States, and, at the ages of eight and 
ten years, enjoyed many a peep at the fashion- 
able gaieties of the day. 

It seems a pity that they could not have wit- 
nessed the great Inauguration itself, but they, 
probably, had many glowing descriptions writ- 
ten them thereof, and I am sure they would have 
heartily enjoyed a letter supposedly indited by 
a lad of 1789, and which may well be intro- 
duced here, as giving an account of the grand 
event, from a boy's standpoint. 

23 Nassau Street, New York, 

May 5, 1789. 

My Dear Winthrop, — It is a thousand 

pities that you had so soon to return to Boston, 

for vastly stirring times have we had in New 

York this spring, and we boys have come in 

10 



Washington's Adopted Children 

for our share of the sport, and have paraded 
the streets in cocked hats, with swords at our 
sides, every minute out of school, for a full 
month past. I was chosen the captain of the 
" Juvenile Tomahawks," and I flatter myself 
that my company did credit to its commander, 
when, on the 23rd of April, we marched in the 
wake of the military procession down to Mur- 
ray's Wharf to welcome the new President,' and 
I know we made more noise than any other regi- 
ment there, as every mother's son shouted at the 
top of his lungs, if a bit out of tune — 

" Brave Washington arrives, 

Arrayed in warlike fame, 
While in his soul revives 

Great Marlboro's martial fame, 
To lead our young republic on 

To lasting glory and renown." 

which is an old song made over to suit the occa- 
sion. 

The girls fancied it immensely, for as we 
passed Mistress Graham's Select School, all 
the pupils came running to the windows, and 
comely Betty Waddington, who generally is 
such a high and mighty little puss, flung a great 
bunch of purple laylocks and yellow daffies right 
1 1 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

at my feet, while the rest giggled and cheered 
and waved their kerchiefs as though they were 
half daft with delight. 

I assure you, after that, the drum and fife 
outdid themselves, and every " Tomahawk " 
held himself as straight as an Indian brave ; but 
the wharf once reached, such a rare view met 
our eyes that we all broke ranks and scrambled 
for good places to see, while little Wash Irv- 
ing's eyes nearly popped out with excitement. 
Verily, Win, it was grand to behold the blue bay 
dotted over with hundreds of boats, dancing up 
and down on the waves, and every ship in the 
harbor but one a perfect nosegay of banners and 
streamers. The government vessel, North 
Carolina, was a " sight for gods and men," as 
brother Jake says; but will you credit it, the 
Galveston, the Spanish man-of-war, never dis- 
played a color except her own national flag? 
Deary me! you ought to have heard how the 
people growled and grumbled at the " ill-man- 
nered Spaniard " ; but pretty soon we forgot all 
but the coming hero as a volley of cannon 
sounded from the Jersey shore, and the finest 
barge that ever I saw came darting out of the 
Kills, rowed by thirteen masters of vessels, 
all dressed in white, with little Tom Randall's 
12 



Washington's Adopted Children 

father acting as cockswain, and commanded by 
Commodore Nicholson. 

In the centre sat the General, and what do 
you think? Just as he came abreast of the 
Galveston, in an instant, as if by magic, the ship 
bloomed out with every flag and signal known, 
while from the deck was fired a salute of thir- 
teen guns. Wasn't that a handsome compli- 
ment? And the crowd changed its tune in a 
twinkling, and cheered and shouted itself hoarse, 
while the " Tomahawks " did their share so 
nobly that an old soldier with a wooden leg 
nodded approval, and said: "Ay, that's 
right, my little cockerels ! Crow away ! Ye'll 
never again see a day like to this day." 

Billy Van Antwerp, Arty Tappan and I crept 
down close to the stairs prepared for the chief- 
tain to land by, so heard every word of Gov- 
ernor Clinton's address of welcome, and then 
we tramped after the troops when they escorted 
his Excellency up through Queen Street to the 
Governor's quarters near Pine. There was a 
chariot waiting for him to ride in, but he would 
have none of it, and walked off arm in arm 
with his host under the floral arches erected in 
his honor, just as though he was Taffy the fid- 
dler or some other commonplace body. But for 
13 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

all that, Cousin Win, he is the grandest, most 
splendid gentleman that ever wore shoe buckles, 
and my throat was sore for two days from 
shrieking, — "Huzza! huzza! three cheers for 
the Father of his Country! " 

Master Hoppin gave us holiday for the 
whole day, so we had a famous drill in the 
afternoon, only a shower came up and wet us to 
the skin, while we were afraid it would spoil the 
illuminations in the evening. Howsomever, 
the rain held up after sundown, so, although 
the pavements were very damp, New York was 
as gay as a pantomime with candles, lamps, and 
transparencies. 

But if the 23rd of April was a goodly day, 
the 30th was goodlier, for then the Inaugura- 
tion took place in the Federal Hall, at Wall 
and Broad streets, which you will remember as 
the old tumble-down City Hall, but which has 
been all made over by the French architect, 
Monsieur L'Enfant, and now has a most beau- 
tiful balcony and arcade. 

I tried to persuade brother Jake to ask the 
Marshal, Colonel Lewis, to let the Juvenile 
Tomahawks march in the procession, but Jake 
is vastly stuck up since he joined the " Gren- 
adiers," and laughed and poked so much fun at 
the idea, saying, " Little bantams shouldn't try 
14 



Washington's Adopted Children 

to stretch their necks too high," that I was 
sorely affronted, and stamped out of the house 
to cool my rage. Anyway I shall be six feet 
myself some day, and then if I am not a Gren- 
adier my name is not Bob Van Kortland. 

Well, on the morning of the 30th all the old 
folks went to church to pray for the new gov- 
ernment, but we boys were off betimes to Broad 
Street and secured a capital place on a roof op- 
posite the Hall, where we sat and dangled our 
feet over the edge and munched gingerbread 
until after twelve o'clock, when Captain Stakes's 
dragoons hove in sight, for again the city troops 
had to escort the President-elect from his resi- 
dence in Cherry Street. After them came Cap- 
tain Van Dyck's artillery, and then the other 
foot soldiers; and verily I did feel proud of 
Jake when I saw him marching with the other 
tall youths, in his blue uniform with its red fac- 
ings and gold ornaments, his cocked hat adorned 
with white feathers and his black " spatter- 
dashes " buttoned close from knee to shoe top. 

Captain Scriba's German company, also, 
looked as gorgeous as a flock of peacocks, in 
blue coats, yellow waistcoats and breeches, and 
funny black bearskin caps, while every fat face 
beamed with happiness, for many of them were 
once the slaves of the Prince of Hesse Cassel, 
15 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

but have lately had their freedom purchased for 
them. The Highlanders, too, marched well, 
and they squeaked away on their bagpipes like 
good fellows. 

The street below was one mass of upturned 
faces; every window, roof and balcony was 
thronged; and while we waited, that pudding- 
head Fig Coltey wagered me a dozen cheese 
cakes that the new President would wear a 
crown like the picture of King George and a big 
cloak trimmed with ermine. 

You can fancy my elation, then, when the 
great man stepped out on the balcony dressed in 
a plain suit of brown cloth, white silk stockings, 
and shoes with the simplest of silver buckles, all 
of which they tell me are of American manu- 
facture. I am sure you would have laughed 
could you have seen Fig's disgusted counte- 
nance (his father is suspected of being a bit of 
a Tory) , as he gazed with his mouth wide open, 
his nose an inch higher than usual, and looking 
for all the world like a dying duck in a thunder- 
storm. So I won the cheese cakes, and uncom- 
monly good they were, but just after that we 
had no time to think of wagers, for we were all 
busy picking out the distinguished men in the 
background — John Adams, the Vice-President, 
Roger Sherman, General Knox, Baron Steuben, 
16 



Washington's Adopted Children 

and a host of others that I have not space to 
mention. Then Chancellor Livingston, dressed 
all in black like a mute at a funeral, arose, and 
the little Secretary of the Senate held up a large, 
open Bible on a beautiful crimson cushion. It 
was so still you could have heard a pin drop, 
and oh, how noble and dignified Washington 
did look as he stretched out his hand to take 
the oath of office, and bowing his powdered 
head, kissed the book! But as soon as the 
Chancellor proclaimed, " Long live George 
Washington, the President of the United 
States! " I verily believe the huzzas might have 
been heard down at Sandy Hook. Faith, it 
was a fine, solemn scene, and one I shall never 
forget should I live to be as old as Daddy Top- 
liff ; and much did I desire to hear the inaugural 
speech. But they would not let us into the Hall 
of Representatives, where it was delivered, so 
all the Tomahawks scampered off to St. Paul's 
Church, and waited in line until the new Presi- 
dent drove up there, when, as he entered, we 
presented arms, at which he smiled and nodded 
and said something to Mr. Adams about 
" Young Americans." 

Cousin Bella will be interested to know 
that there is soon to be a very grand inaugural 
ball in the City Assembly rooms for which 
17 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

my sisters are having made exceedingly fine 
petticoats and perriots of striped silk trimmed 
with gauze — at least that is what I think Eve 
told me to say — while they are taking private 
dancing lessons from Monsieur Hewlett, in 
hopes of having the honor of treading a minuet 
with " Mr. President," as Congress has decided 
the new ruler shall be called. Howsoever, 
many regrets are expressed that Lady Washing- 
ton will not be here on the occasion. 

In faith, Winthrop, this is a lengthy letter 
which I have writ you with my own hand, the 
more so that I am none too fond of wielding 
the quill, so I will only add that I have just 
heard that Arty Tappan has been selected to 
serve as a page at the ball, and present each 
lady with a French fan of ivory and paper 
bearing a likeness of George Washington, as a 
souvenir of the first inauguration. 

Pray present my respects to Uncle and Aunt 
Endicott, and believe me, as ever, 
Your affectionate kinsman, 
Robert Bayard Van Kortland. 

But although the young folks of Mount Ver- 
non were not with Bob and Arty and little 
Washington Irving on the day of that great 
pageant, the journey they took to New York 
18 



Washington's Adopted Children 

in company with their grandmamma and their 
tutor, Mr. Tobias Lear, who also acted as sec- 
retary to the General, was almost a royal 
progress, with military receptions, music and 
fireworks all along the route, while they were 
welcomed to the metropolis with prolonged 
cheers and shouts of " Long live President 
Washington and God bless Lady Washington," 
on all sides. 

Here their home and the first executive man- 
sion was a low-ceilinged house on the corner of 
Pearl and Cherry streets, which was sometimes 
dignified by the title of " the Palace." But it 
was an exceedingly simple court that was held 
there, and the children's studies were vigorously 
kept up under Mr. Lear and the wise discipline 
of their grandmother, although no doubt they 
were often allowed a half hour at the Friday 
evening receptions when the Vans and Vons of 
the old Knickerbocker and Patroon families 
came to pay their respects to the head of the 
nation; where there was always plum-cake, tea, 
coffee and pleasant chit-chat; but which were 
invariably broken up at an early hour by the 
hostess rising and saying with a gracious smile : 
" The General always retires at nine and I 
usually precede him." 

The domestic part of the household, both 
19 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

here and later in the more commodious man- 
sion on Broadway, near Bowling Green, was 
looked after by Samuel Fraunces, the keeper of 
the once famous Fraunces' Tavern, while under 
him served a cook by the name of Hercules; and 
of these young Custis wrote in after years, 
" When Fraunces, in snow white apron, silk 
shirt and stockings, and hair in full powder, 
placed the first dish on the table, the clock 
being on the stroke of four, ' the labors of Her- 
cules ' ceased." 

In his reminiscences, too, he vouches for the 
" fish story," having probably been an eyewit- 
ness of the scene, when a lad of eight or ten 
years. Knowing Washington's fondness for 
sea-food, Fraunces provided a shad very early 
in the season when they were exceedingly scarce 
and dear. Hardly, however, had the delicacy 
appeared upon the board when the President 
inquired its price. 

" Three dollars," stammered Fraunces, at 
which Washington fairly thundered forth, 
" Take it away, take it away, sir; it shall never 
be said that my table sets such an example of 
luxury and extravagance." 

It was rather a regret to all the Washingtons 
when the seat of government was removed to 
Philadelphia and went into residence in " a 
20 



Washington's Adopted Children 

small, red brick house next door to a hair- 
dresser; but there was much gaiety in the City 
of Brotherly Love at the close of the eighteenth 
century and many distinguished people there did 
congregate. It was here Nelly Custis returned 
home from the school at Annapolis where she 
was " finished," and both here and at Mount 
Vernon she was often visited by her bosom 
friends, Elizabeth Bordley and Martha Coffin; 
and these three chums seem to have done all 
the fond, foolish things dear to the old fash- 
ioned school-girl. They wrote romantic letters 
to each other, composed verses, swore undying 
friendship, and finally, had portraits painted for 
each member of the trio. 

Elizabeth Bordley, particularly, was very 
much given to writing poetry, and living, as she 
did, in Philadelphia, was frequently at the pres- 
idential home, and later, as Mrs. Gibson, loved 
to tell of Washington leaving his study of 
an evening to enjoy the society of the young 
people and dance with them a Virginia reel. It 
was Mrs. Gibson, too, who has left us this pretty 
pen-picture of Lady Washington and her 
adopted daughter: 

" Mrs. Washington was in the habit of re- 
tiring at an early hour to her own room unless 
detained by company, and there, no matter what 
21 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

the hour, Nellie attended her. One evening 
my father's carriage being late in coming for 
me, my dear young friend invited me to ac- 
company her to grandmama's room. There, 
after some little chat, Mrs. Washington apolo- 
gized to me for pursuing her usual preparations 
for the night, and Nellie entered upon her ac- 
customed duty by reading a chapter and psalm 
from the old family Bible, after which all pres- 
ent knelt in evening prayer; Mrs. Washington's 
faithful maid then assisted her to disrobe and 
lay her head upon the pillow; Nellie then sang 
a verse of some sweetly soothing hymn, and 
then leaning down received the parting blessing 
for the night, with some emphatic remarks on 
her duties, improvements, etc. The effect of 
these judicious habits and teachings appeared 
in the granddaughter's character through life." 
So the eight years of the first administration 
were on the whole pleasant and satisfactory 
to old and young, though it was without regret 
that Washington resigned his high office. Nelly 
Custis was among those at the inauguration of 
John Adams, and it is said she was so agitated 
that " she could not trust herself to be near 
her honored grandfather." Nevertheless, 
shortly after their return to Mount Vernon, 
she wrote to a friend: 

22 



Washington's Adopted Children 

" We arrived here on Wednesday without 
any accident, after a tedious journey of seven 
days. Grandpapa is very well and much 
pleased with being once more Farmer Wash- 
ington." 

Neighbors rejoiced at having the family back, 
and a guest who once partook of the Mount 
Vernon hospitality, has given us this account 
of its lavishness: 

" The table of dark mahogany, waxed and 
polished like a mirror, was square. In the 
center stood a branched epergne of silver wire 
and cut glass filled with a tasteful arrangement 
of apples, pears, plums, peaches and grapes. 
At one end, Mrs. Washington, looking as hand- 
some as ever, assisted by a young lady, presided 
behind a handsome silver tea-service. There 
was an enormous silver hot-water urn nearly two 
feet high and a whole battalion of tiny flaring 
cups and saucers of blue India china. The sil- 
ver, polished to its highest, reflected the blaze 
of many wax candles in branched candelabra 
and in sticks of silver. Fried oysters, waffles, 
fried chicken, cold turkey, canvasback ducks, 
venison, and that Southern institution, a baked 
ham, were among the good things provided for 
the company of gentlemen invited by the Pres- 
ident to sup with him. Lady Washington dis- 
23 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

pensed the tea with so much grace that each 
gentleman was constrained to take it." 

That a maiden so high-born and beautiful 
as Eleanor Custis should have a host of suitors 
goes without saying, and among these was young 
Charles Carroll, of Carrolton. That she said 
him " nay," however, seems almost certain and, 
soon after, the fair girl delighted her grand- 
father by wedding his favorite nephew, Law- 
rence Lewis. 

This occurred on February 22nd, 1799, and 
the record in Washington's diary, on his last 
birthday, reads — 

"The Rev d Mr. Davis and Mr. George 
Calvert came to dinner and Miss Custis was 
married about candle-light to Mr. Law* 
Lewis." 

Meanwhile, young Washington Custis was 
receiving his education at Annapolis and Prince- 
ton, where he was chiefly noted for his faculty 
for spending money, but in after life became 
known as a man of fine taste and versatile tal- 
ents. He was fond of music and art and 
painted some quite creditable battle scenes, 
while he also wrote plays and poems and con- 
tributed to newspapers. He married an ex- 
tremely accomplished woman, Miss Mary Lee 
Fitzhugh, and, after the death of Lady Wash- 
24 



Washington's Adopted Children 

ington, built the mansion — " Arlington House " 
— on an estate left him by his father, on the 
west side of the Potomac. Here he gathered 
together family portraits and numerous relics 
of our first President and the Revolution, and is 
best remembered by his " Recollections and Pri- 
vate Memories," which fondly recall the 
" Father of his Country," and his own dear 
adopted parent. 



25 



CHAPTER II 

FOUR LITTLE YANKEES 

THE three sons and one daughter of 
John Adams must, by courtesy, be con- 
sidered the first young people of the 
real White House at Washington, although 
they had passed the bounds of boyhood and 
girlhood when their father was chosen second 
President of the United States, succeeding the 
great man with whom he had served as Vice- 
President, and of whom he was always sadly 
jealous. 

On the mother's side they traced their lineage 
back to the Smiths of Weymouth, veritable 
Puritans of Puritans, and Parson William 
Smith's family and congregation shook their 
heads in wondering disapproval when his daugh- 
ter Abigail followed the dictates of her heart 
and wedded young John Adams, the son of a 
small farmer of the middle class, and what 
was far worse, a lawyer by profession — that 
calling being considered scarcely honest by strict 
church people in Colonial days. 
26 



Four Little Yankees 



Much gossip there must have been, for the 
bride's father — who had a good bit of hu- 
mor mixed up with his Calvinism — replied to 
it in a sermon, taking for his text : 

" For John came neither eating bread nor 
drinking wine, and ye say he hath a devil." 

This certainly was hard on worthy John 
Adams, who was a clever, earnest young fellow, 
and very far from having a devil ; but he carried 
off his wife in triumph to his plain, little home 
at Braintree, a small town eleven miles from 
Boston. 

It was just such a frame house as you 
may see hundreds of in New England, with a 
door in the middle, a window on each side, and 
three above, and a sharply sloping roof; and 
here, before many years, we hear of the minis- 
ter coming over to hold another little Abigail, 
as well as a small grandson, John Quincy, upon 
his knee, and tell them, not nursery rhymes and 
fairy tales, but true stories of the early settlers 
and thrilling encounters with Indians and wild 
beasts. 

" Abby favors her father," the neighbors 
were wont to say, when the eldest child was 
big enough to rock her baby brother to sleep 
in the quaint old wooden cradle hewed out of a 
great pine log and with an overhanging hood. 
27 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

But it was the mother who instructed her in the 
" three R's," as they were facetiously termed, 
trained her in all domestic tasks and taught her 
to work upon her sampler, even while she her- 
self performed her domestic duties in the big, 
cheerful kitchen, festooned with strings of dried 
apples and hung with ears of corn and bunches 
of dried catnip, pennyroyal and boneset. 

In those days letter-writing was considered a 
most important accomplishment and each week 
little Abigail and her young friends would in- 
dite wonderful epistles, more like essays than 
notes, and filled with religious sentiments. 
These effusions they carried to church on the 
Sabbath and exchanged with one another. 

As for young John Quincy Adams, the 
" times that tried men's souls," as well as the 
severe Puritanic manner in which he was bred, 
made him the thoughtful, self-repressed boy 
his name always seems to suggest, and old far 
beyond his years, for he was but a wee lad of 
seven when, from a high eminence, he heark- 
ened to the guns on Bunker Hill and watched 
the flaming ruin of Charlestown. His favor- 
ite amusement was to wander through the 
woods, noting the habits of animals, and the na- 
ture of plants; and we read of his setting him- 
self " stints " of work and regretfully writing 
28 



Four Little Yankees 



to his father that he often finds his " thoughts 
running after birds' eggs, play and trifles," and 
gravely asking his advice as to how he shall 
properly proportion his playtime and studies. 

" What a little prig! " I think I hear some 
boy reader exclaim. 

Well, perhaps he was, from our twentieth- 
century standpoint, but he was a little hero as 
well when the Revolution broke out and his 
father, who was in Congress, sent word to his 
wife: " Fly to the woods with the children/' 
— there now being two more small boys, 
Thomas Boylston and Charles, in the Braintree 
household. Mrs. Adams refused to fly, but all 
the family was, as John Quincy himself says, 
" liable every hour of the day and of the 
night to be butchered in cold blood, or taken 
and carried into Boston as hostages by any for- 
aging or marauding detachment." At nine 
years old, too, he was called upon not only to 
be the man of the house, but to serve as post- 
rider between the city and the farm, making 
daily trips with the letter bags slung across his 
saddlebows, although in constant danger of 
capture. 

Do you not think his childish heart must 
sometimes have quailed? Not for a dozen 
lives, though, would he have put to the blush 
29 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

his patriotic mother, who kept up her spirits 
amid all trials, made light of it when the red- 
coats and buff-and-blues left them little to eat 
except whortleberries and milk; and instructed 
him to add to his nightly prayers Collins' ode, 
commencing — 

" How sleep the brave who sink to rest 
By all their country's wishes blest! " 

In the course of time, however, brighter and 
more peaceful days dawned. The year 1778 
found Mr. Adams appointed Commissioner to 
France, when he took with him his eldest son and 
from then on — broken only by a brief visit 
home — young John Quincy spent nearly seven 
years abroad. In the various cities of Europe 
he picked up a pretty good, if desultory, educa- 
tion, and must have made excellent use of his 
opportunities, as we find him, at fourteen, hold- 
ing the position of private secretary to Francis 
Dana, our minister to Russia. He accompa- 
nied that gentleman to St. Petersburg, where 
familiarity with cultured society and constant 
converse with men of affairs transformed the 
home-bred little Puritan into a most remarkable 
youth of sixteen, as attractive in person as in 
mind, if we may judge from a pastel painted 
at that age. It is thus described: 
3° 



Four Little Yankees 



" The head Is powdered, but a lock of the 
dark hair is indistinctly seen falling down the 
boy's back in a queue and tied with a black rib- 
band. The complexion is a fine blonde, charm- 
ingly accented by the dark eyes and irregular 
arched eyebrows, while a slight cast in the left 
eye, with a faint roguish smile that plays about 
the mouth, add a certain piquancy, making the 
face very pleasant to look at. The coat is of 
pale blue silk with a jabot of lace." 

During this schoolboy period, he began re- 
cording his doings and impressions in a diary, 
a thin paper book stitched into a brown paper 
cover; and this he illustrated profusely with 
rude drawings of soldiers, forts, and men-of- 
war. This habit, too, he kept up nearly all 
his life. 

For a short time his next younger brother 
joined him in Europe, but Thomas Boylston 
Adams never appears to have been as strong as 
John, and died in early manhood. He, also, 
was a very studious youth, no doubt encouraged 
to be so by his Spartan-like mother, who once 
wrote of this frail, second son: 

" He who dies with studying, dies in a good 
cause, and may go to another world much bet- 
ter calculated to improve his talents than if he 
had died a blockhead." 
3i 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

While the two elder boys were disporting 
themselves abroad, Abigail and little Charley 
were pursuing the quiet, uneventful tenor of 
their existence in that part of their Massachu- 
setts town which had been re-christened 
" Quincy," in honor of Mrs. Adams' ancestors. 
But finally Mr. Adams, finding his sojourn in 
Europe was indefinitely prolonged, summoned 
his wife and daughter to join him, and setting 
sail in the ship Active, they crossed the Atlantic 
in a little less than a month. 

Abby must have felt like " Alice in Wonder- 
land," when transplanted from the prim life of 
a New England village to the brightness and 
gaiety and sparkle of gay Paris, just in the 
height of poor Marie Antoinette's happy-go- 
lucky reign ! That it was fascinating goes with- 
out saying, and how the girl must have loved 
to wander in the beautiful garden, all rows of 
orange trees and octangular flower-beds, with 
stone statues peeping out from bosky haunts, 
which surrounded their great airy house at Au- 
teuil, a short distance from the city. 

Now, for the first time, Miss Abby had a 
maid to dress her hair, rode in a coach, and met 
princes and other distinguished people whom 
her parents entertained at dinner and receptions. 
Verily, it was a winter ever to be remembered ! 
32 



Four Little Yankees 



And then Mr. Adams received another com- 
mission — that of minister to Great Britain — 
and Abigail and her mother were whisked off 
to England, where the former was soon as 
happy as in France, for what young maiden 
would not be captivated by a London season, 
going from rout to rout, as they were termed, 
and a presentation at court! She was always, 
however, a loyal little Yankee, and on all occa- 
sions stood up for her native land, as the child 
of an American Consul ought to do. 

Perhaps some girls will be interested to know 
what Miss Abby wore when she first appeared 
at the Court of St. James and made her much 
practised courtesy before King George, Queen 
Charlotte and the Princess Royal; and Mrs. 
Adams, who verily " wielded the pen of a ready 
writer," was very explicit in informing a certain 
Betsey and Lucy that — 

" The train was of white crape and trimmed 
with white ribbon. The petticoat, which is the 
most showy part of the dress, covered and drawn 
up on what are called festoons, with light 
wreaths of beautiful flowers; the sleeves white 
crape drawn over the silk, with a row of lace 
round the sleeve near the shoulder, another 
half-way down the arm, and a third upon the 
top of the ruffle, a little flower stuck between; 
33 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

a kind of hat-cap, with three large feathers and 
a bunch of flowers; a wreath of flowers upon 
the hair. Thus equipped, we go in our own 
carriage, and Mr. Adams and Colonel Smith 
in his." 

This young Colonel Smith was the secretary 
of the legation, and in the following year he 
wooed and won pretty Abigail, making for her 
a home in New York, although they spent much 
time in travel. 

John Quincy did not accompany his family 
to England, but returned to America and en- 
tered the junior class at Harvard, from which 
college he was graduated and commenced the 
practice of the law. But this bright young man 
"was never destined for a private life and none 
ever held more public offices, starting with min- 
ister to the Netherlands — an honor to which 
he was appointed on his twenty-seventh birthday 
— step by step upward until he not only went 
to the White House as the son of the President, 
but as the President himself. 

Gentle Charles, the youngest of the quartette, 
appears to have been his mother's own boy, as a 
child at Braintree, singing Scotch songs to cheer 
her loneliness during the enforced separation 
from her husband, and, in early manhood, being 
her proud escort to the social affairs at which 
34 



Four Little Yankees 



she appeared as the wife of the Vice-Presi- 
dent. 

He married young and also died young, leav- 
ing two orphan daughters — Susanna and Abi- 
gail — the elder of whom was, probably, the 
first bona-fide " girl of the White House," be- 
ing taken there by her grandparents when only 
a midget of four in a black frock, for it was in 
the last year of John Adams' administration 
that the seat of government was removed from 
Philadelphia to Washington, and the presiden- 
tial family took possession of the then bare and 
only half-finished executive mansion. 

A veritable madcap was little Susanna, with 
plenty of spirit, and her cousins often made 
merry over her half-comic, half-tragic fracas 
with a certain little Ann Black. 

It seems that the child's uncle, Thomas Boyls- 
ton Adams, had presented her with a doll's tea- 
set of which she was vastly proud, and Ann 
was invited to drink " cambric-tea " poured 
from the tiny tea-pot into fairy-like cups, and 
eat cake off of the dainty plates. 

It was a happy little " Five O'clock Tea," 
and all went well until Susanna, being called 
from the room, returned to find her guest fled 
and her precious china in atoms on the floor. 
Little Miss Black's feelings of envy had sud- 
3S 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

denly overcome her, and she had given vent to 
them with a vengeance. 

Naturally, after this, the relations between 
the friends were decidedly strained for some 
time. Indeed, they remained so until Ann, be- 
coming the possessor of a small doll that could 
actually open and shut its eyes, was unable to 
resist asking her former chum to spend the after- 
noon and admire her treasure. Susanna went 
and played quite amicably for awhile, but all 
at once on the young hostess turning her back 
— presto ! into her rosy mouth popped poor 
Dolly's head and her sharp, white teeth met 
through its waxen neck. Then, with a satisfied 
" There! " she tossed the mutilated doll to its 
agonized owner and walked off, feeling that 
" revenge was certainly sweet." 

Even when an old lady, Susanna would relate 
this incident with the greatest gusto, always 
concluding with, " And I never was sorry that I 
bit that doll's head off." 

For companions at the White House she 
often had Mrs. Smith's little ones, especially the 
eldest, who might well be termed " John the 
third." 

Master John Smith was left a great deal in 
the charge of his grandmother, but often dis- 
tressed that worthy lady by his aptness in pick- 
36 



Four Little Yankees 



ing up any new word or song he chanced to hear, 
and by preferring " Jack and Jill," and " Little 
Bopeep " to Doctor Watts' " Moral Songs for 
Children." 

This real boy seems to have been a great 
favorite with President Washington, who, at a 
dinner-party, once ruthlessly picked the sugar- 
plums out of a cake to send to the lively young- 
ster. His grandfather, too, he ruled with a 
rod of iron, or rather a willow wand with which 
he used to drive him about the house, insisting 
on his being his " horse," and drawing him up 
and down in a chair, the dignified statesman 
condescending to this imperious little grandson 
as he never did to children of his own. 



37 



CHAPTER III 

A BAND OF YOUNG VIRGINIANS 

LIKE unto Washington, Thomas Jeffer- 
son, third President of the United 
States, wooed and wedded a young and 
beautiful widow, and one who, also, bore the 
name of Martha. 

They met at her father's fine place, " The 
Forest," a few miles from Williamsburg, and 
as Martha Wayles Skelton was a skilled per- 
former on the spinet, while Thomas played the 
violin, their courting was early set to music, 
which, waxing louder and sweeter, culminated 
in the divine harmony of an almost perfect mar- 
ried life. 

For ten years she was not only the states- 
man's wife, but his comrade and helpmeet as 
well, making for him an ideal home on lovely 
Monticello Mountain, and there they hoped to 
enjoy together a well-earned rest when all war 
and political strife were at an end. 

But this was not to be. 
38 



A Band of Young Virginians 

Suddenly the wife and mother was sum- 
moned to a higher sphere, while the framer of 
the Declaration of Independence only roused 
from the swoon into which he had fallen as she 
breathed her last, to gaze, with sorrow and des- 
olation in his heart, at the three motherless 
girls left in his sole charge. 

Martha, who had just completed her first 
decade; little Mary, with auburn hair like 
his own, and Lucy, an infant only a few days 
old. 

Half crazed, he shut himself away from his 
sympathizing friends, all alone, except for one 
small comforter, who would not be denied — 
the eldest of the little maids, whom he fondly 
called " Patsy," and who, in after-years wrote 
of this sad period: 

" The violence of his emotion when, almost 
by stealth, I entered his room at night, to this 
day I dare not trust myself to describe. He 
kept his room for three weeks, and I was never 
a moment from his side." 

It was this loving little woman who, at last, 
lured him back from death or insanity, until 
one day he tottered out onto the veranda of 
Monticello and drank in the lovely view of 
blue hills, waving green woods, and winding 
river. Then, realizing that even in grief there 
39 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

may be selfishness, he responded, for the first 
time, to the childish caresses and said: 

" Yes," we will live, daughter — live in mem- 
ory of her! " 

No wonder, then, that when two months 
later, Mr. Jefferson was appointed Plenipoten- 
tiary to Europe, there to be associated with Mr. 
Adams and Dr. Franklin, in negotiating peace, 
he felt that he could not be separated from his 
beloved little comforter, who bore her mother's 
name, and decided to take her with him, while 
Mary or Polly, and baby Lucy were left in 
the tender care of their aunt, Mrs. Eppes, who 
had a large and interesting family of her own. 

But, after all, on reaching Philadelphia, the 
statesman found so much to occupy him in Con- 
gress that their departure was delayed for more 
than a year, and there was nothing to do but 
place Martha in a boarding-school, where, un- 
der the kindly tuition of excellent Mrs. Hop- 
kinson, she made satisfactory progress in her 
studies, but where her mind became greatly ex- 
ercised over sundry superstitious fears that were 
agitating the world at large at that time. 

Writing these fears to her father, he thus 
wisely replied: 

" I hope you will have good sense enough to 
disregard those foolish predictions that the 
40 



A Band of Young Virginians 

world is to be at an end soon. The Almighty 
has never made known to anybody at what time 
He created it, nor will He tell anybody when 
He will put an end to it, if He ever means to 
do so." He also gave her much good advice 
as to neatness in dress. 

At length, in 1784, the long-deferred voyage 
to France was taken and, just about the same 
time as Abigail Adams, Patsy, was landed in 
the gay French metropolis; although being 
younger than the New England girl, she was 
not plunged into society but into the Abbage 
Royal de Panthemont, such an aristocratic con- 
vent school that no pupil was admitted without 
the recommendation of a lady of rank. Mar- 
tha Jefferson owed her introduction to a friend 
of the Marquis de la Fayette, who became in- 
terested in la petite Americaine; but a very sad 
homesick child was she at first, unable to un- 
derstand the language, petting the tame squirrel 
given her as a consoler, and, when her father 
came, welcoming him with tears of joy, and 
then crying because he had to leave again. 

But this was not for long. She soon learned 
to chatter French with the best and, in a most 
cheerful vein, described her life at Panthemont 
to a friend in America. 

" I was placed in a convent at my arrival, 
4i 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

and I leave you to judge of my situation. I 
did not speak a word of French, and no one here 
knew English but a little girl ten years old that 
could hardly speak French. There are about 
fifty or sixty pensioners in the house, so that 
speaking as much as I could with them, I 
learnt the language very soon. At present I 
am charmed with my situation. The classe is 
four rooms, exceedingly large, for the pension- 
ers to sleep in, and there is a fifth and sixth — 
one for them to stay in the day and the other 
in which to take their lessons in. 

" We wear the uniform, which is crimson, 
made like a frock, laced behind, with the tail, 
like a robe de cour, hooked on ; muslin cuffs and 
tuckers. The masters are all very good, except 
that for the drawing." 

Here, then, Patsy passed several happy years, 
forming life-long friendships with an English 
" Julia " and " Betty," and the French Made- 
moiselle de Botedoux and Mademoiselle de 
Chateaubrun, who called her " Jeff," and " Jef- 
fie." The story is told, too, that when she had 
been there about a twelvemonth, the high-born 
dame who had spoken for her the " good 
word," came to the Abbage, somewhat curious 
to see how the shy little American had devel- 
oped. At the hour of her arrival the pupils 
42 



A Band of Young Virginians 

were all at play in the garden and she sat 
down by a window to watch them. Among 
them she particularly noted a tall, aristocratic- 
looking, though hardly pretty girl, and turning 
to the nun beside her asked — " Who is that? " 
The sister looked at the lady in surprise. 
" Why, Madame," she replied, " that is your 
protegee, Mademoiselle Jefferson." 

At this the lady smiled with satisfaction. 
"Ah, indeed!" she exclaimed, "she has a 
very distinguished air." 

Thus we see that her life at the convent 
had given her just the confidence and self-reli- 
ance she needed. 

Meanwhile, far away in the Blue Ridge home, 
little Lucy, the precocious baby of two and 
a half, who early developed such an ear for 
music that she would listen spellbound when 
anyone played and cry if a false note was struck, 
was seized with whooping cough and died at the 
same time as a tiny namesake cousin. 

A whole generation afterward a long golden 
curl, clipped from this child's sunny head, was 
found among Mr. Jefferson's private treasures, 
and it was probably this bereavement that 
awoke in his heart the desire to have his now 
youngest daughter near him, for he wrote to 
Mrs. Eppes that " Dear little Polly hung upon 
43 



Boys and Girls of the Wh ite House 

his mind night and day," and directed that she 
be sent to join him and her sister. 

Now, this was not at all pleasing to Miss 
Mary, who was devotedly attached to her Vir- 
ginia home and relatives, especially one boy 
cousin, and exceedingly pleading letters were 
sent across seas begging " Papa " to let her stay 
with " Aunt Eppes and Cousin Jacky." 

But Mr. Jefferson was obdurate and finally 
" the little lady," as he called her, was gotten 
off by strategy. 

She and her cousins were taken, ostensibly, to 
visit a ship lying at anchor and allowed to romp 
until Polly, worn out, dropped down and fell 
asleep. When she awoke, all familiar faces had 
disappeared except that of her black attendant; 
the vessel was out at sea and she en route for 
England, her young heart nearly broken by such 
treatment on the part of those she loved best. 

But children's tears are soon dried and she 
was most kindly received by Mrs. John Adams 
and Miss Abby, who kept her at their home in 
London until they could find for her a proper 
escort to Paris. 

In her famous letters, too, the former thus 
describes her young guest: " I have had with 
me a little daughter of Mr. Jefferson's, who ar- 
rived here with a young negro girl, her servant, 
44 



A Band of Young Virginians 

from Virginia. ... A finer child of her 
age I never saw. She is not eight years old. 
She would sit sometimes and describe to me the 
parting with her aunt, and the love she had for 
her little cousins till the tears would stream 
down her cheeks, and how I had been her 
friend and she loved me. She clung round me 
so that I could not help shedding a tear at part- 
ing with her. She was the favorite with every- 
one in the house." 

The little French folk, too, took to her at 
once, calling her " Mademoiselle Po-lie " and 
" Marie," while her father and sister did all in 
their power to make her happy and feel at home 
with them, although when they first saw each 
other, Mr. Jefferson declared " she neither knew 
us nor should we have known her had we met 
with her unexpectedly." 

She was not so studious as Martha, nor was 
her sojourn at the convent a long one, for im- 
pressionable Patsy, who was supposed to be a 
staunch little Episcopalian, suddenly astounded 
her father by informing him that she wished to 
take the veil and become a nun, having been 
largely influenced to this by the Abbe Edge- 
worth de Fermont, the priest who some years 
after was to accompany the unfortunate Louis 
the Sixteenth, as his confessor, to the guillotine. 
45 



Boys and Girls of the W hite House 

Two days later Mr. Jefferson drove to Pan- 
themont. Patsy met him trembling, but he only 
greeted her with more than wonted cordiality. 
He, however, requested an interview with the 
Abbess, and at its close, informed his daughters 
that he had come to take them both away, 
which was done immediately. Thus Martha's 
school career came to an abrupt conclusion and 
she was at once introduced to Parisian society, 
without her fancy for the cloister even being 
mentioned. 

Years after, she spoke with gratitude of her 
parent's judicious course on this occasion, for 
her desire was not a deep religious conviction, 
but one of those transient emotions to which 
romantic girls are ever subject. 

For some months she shone as the brightest 
ornament of the minister's salon, and had lots 
of good times, being allowed to go to three 
balls a week, but never to a fourth, no matter 
how " tempting " that fourth might be. She 
met dozens of interesting people, was compli- 
mented on her dancing by the Duke de Fronsac 
— afterward the Duke de Richelieu — always 
had a pleasant, merry word from La Fayette, 
and listened with enthusiastic admiration to Ma- 
dame de Stael's wonderful conversation, while 
for one evening, at least, she with other ladies 
46 



A Band of Young Virginians 

sported the French tricolor upon her ball gown, 
at a country dance, the cockade having been 
pinned there by a French officer. 

Of course Patsy had her admirers among 
these foreigners and several efforts were made 
to keep her on that side of the Atlantic, but, 
like all Southern girls, she had a " cousin " 
tucked away in the warmest corner of her heart, 
and when she and her father were surprised 
one evening by a call from " Second-Cousin " 
Thomas Randolph, fresh from the University 
at Edinburgh, all Frenchmen paled beside the 
tall, athletic young American. 

But the murmurings of the Revolution were 
now waxing louder and fiercer, and in the au- 
tumn of 1789 Mr. Jefferson thought it best 
to take his family back to the United States. 
After several narrow escapes from fire and 
from water, Monticello was reached in safety 
and the slaves welcomed them with extravagant 
joy, unharnessing the horses and dragging the 
carriage themselves to their own door. 

" God bress you ! " 

" Jest look at de chilluns ! " 

"Ain't our Miss Patsy tall?" 

" See our dear little Polly, bress her heart ! " 

These were some of the exclamations heard 
as the distinguished-looking girl of seventeen 
47 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

and the beautiful child of eleven passed through 
the lines of kindly, dusky faces, making them 
feel that, after all, there was no place like " Ole 
Virginny." 

Then the very February after their home- 
coming there was a wedding on the Blue Ridge 
plantation and Thomas Mann Randolph, with 
Martha as his bride, settled down on " Little 
Mountain," nigh to the dear old home. Polly, 
or Maria as she came to be called, lived with 
them until her father carried her off to be his 
housekeeper in Philadelphia, while the states- 
man was never so busy he could not find time to 
write his " dear girls," delightful letters full of 
birds and flowers and questions to the younger 
as to whether she " sees the sun rise every day? 
how many pages she reads in Don Quixote? 
whether she can make a pudding or cut a beef- 
steak? and if she can set a hen? " 

But at fourteen, we find " Mademoiselle Po- 
lie " leading an ideal existence " under the 
trees," in the quaint Quaker town, for Mr. Jef- 
ferson assured an acquaintance that they never 
went " into the house but at the hour of bed." 
They breakfasted, dined, wrote, read and held 
receptions on the grass under the plane trees, 
while Nellie Custis was one of her bosom friends 
and doubtless that favorite " Cousin Jacky " 
48 



A Band of Young Virginians 

often dropped in for a bit of love-making in 
the pleasant, secluded garden, for a few years 
later pretty Polly wedded her first love and it 
was as Mrs. John Eppes that she assisted Pres- 
ident Jefferson, when, in 1801, he was sent to 
the barren, draughty White House at Wash- 
ington. 

At this time Maria is described as being 
" supremely beautiful," her glorious crown of 
auburn hair ever lingering in the memories of 
those who saw her, while her character was as 
lovely as her face. Once, while she was lying 
ill, Mr. Jefferson wrote her — " You have never 
by word or deed given me a moment's uneasi- 
ness. On the contrary, I have felt a perpetual 
gratitude to Heaven for having given me in 
you a source of so much pure and unmixed hap- 
piness. Go on, then, my dear, as you have 
done, deserving the love of everybody." 

But alas ! she was very frail, and during her 
father's administration, sweet Polly Jefferson 
Eppes faded away, leaving one tiny son named 
Francis. 

That the President long and deeply mourned 
this fair, young daughter, cut off in the heyday 
of her womanhood, no one can doubt, but he 
was greatly consoled by the bevy of grandchil- 
dren growing up around him and brightening 
49 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

by their presence both homes — at Washington 
and Monticello. 

Cornelia, Virginia and Mary Randolph were 
veritable girls of the White House, romping 
and playing in its wide corridors and often run- 
ning exciting races with " Grandpa " as umpire, 
ready to reward the victor with three figs or 
three dates. 

There was fair-haired Anne the eldest, of 
whom in her babyhood Mr. Jefferson declared 
" even Socrates might ride on a stick with her 
without being ridiculous " ; there was Thomas 
Jefferson, the " heavy-seeming " small boy who 
was the very apple of the good gentleman's eye, 
and later the " staff of his old age," and there 
was Ellen, the brightest of little scholars, who 
became a most intelligent and delightful 
woman, and married Mr. Coolidge, of Boston. 

To the second boy, James Madison, fell the 
honor of being the first baby born in the White 
House, and he soon had as companions Ben- 
jamin, the practical and energetic, and hand- 
some, winning Lewis, who was afterward a 
most brilliant lawyer. One girl did not live to 
grow up, and naughty, merry little Septima was 
so-called because she was the seventh daughter, 
while the dozen was rounded off by George, the 
50 



A Band of Young Virginians 

gallant sailor laddie, whose affection for his 
mother was the " passion " of his life. 

In all the young Randolphs, Mr. Jefferson 
tried to encourage a love of gardening by giv- 
ing them flower bulbs and plants upon which he 
had bestowed comic and historic names. In 
the spring, then, it was no uncommon sound 
to hear a shout of " Oh, Grandpa ! come and 
see! Marcus Aurelius has his head out of the 
ground! " or " The Queen of the Amazons is 
popping up." He also inculcated the truest 
courtesy to high and low, and once gravely 
reproved his favorite grandson, when that 
young man failed to return the respectful salu- 
tation of a negro, by asking: "Thomas, do 
you permit a slave to be more of a gentleman 
than yourself? " 

His granddaughters simply adored him, one 
declaring, " I cannot describe the feelings of 
veneration, admiration and love that existed in 
my heart toward him." While another (El- 
len) says: 

" My Bible came from him, my Shakespeare, 
my first writing-table, my handsome writing- 
desk, my first Leghorn hat, my first silk dress. 
What, in short, of all my treasures did not come 
from him? My sisters were equally provided 
5i 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

for. Our grandfather used to read our hearts, 
to see our individual wishes, to be our good 
genius, to wave the fairy wand, to brighten our 
young lives by his goodness and his gifts." 

Mrs. Martha Randolph had her hands full 
with her large family and her convivial, spend- 
thrift husband, although he was an able poli- 
tician and, at one time, Governor of Virginia. 
She could not, therefore, share the " Jeffer- 
sonian simplicity " and the French dinners at the 
White House as often as she wished, and her 
place was frequently filled there by Mrs. Madi- 
son and her young sister, Miss Payne, of whom 
we shall know more hereafter. 

On two occasions, however, she made long 
visits there, and the second time, her eldest 
daughter, Anne, was thought old enough to be 
introduced to society. For the first time, then, 
the young lady went to a large ball en grande 
toilette, well escorted and chaperoned. 

A funny little incident, too, marked the even- 
ing. 

Mrs. Randolph, who was extremely near- 
sighted and who had never seen her daughter, 
except in simple, girlish costumes, was filled 
with admiration when a tall, blonde maiden en- 
tered the room. 

" Who is that beautiful young woman? " she 
52 



A Band of Young Virginians 

inquired of Mrs. Cutts, who was seated beside 
her. 

The young matron answered with a laugh. 
"Heavens! woman!" she exclaimed, "don't 
you know your own child? " 

There were many others, also, who admired 
the fair debutante and she married quite young 
a Mr. Blankhead, who, however, did not make 
her the best of husbands. 

Mistress Patsy had her trials, but she was an 
ideal wife and mother, and Bacon — the over- 
seer at Monticello — says of her: "She was 
the best woman I ever knew. Few such 
women ever lived. I never saw her equal." 
So the ex-President, his sole surviving child and 
his beloved grandchildren were very happy to- 
gether on the little mountain, after his retire- 
ment from office. 

It is sad, then, to remember that reverses 
came to such a united family, so that Jefferson's 
valuable and highly-prized library had to be 
sarificed, even before that Fourth of July, 1826 
— just fifty years after the signing of the Dec- 
laration, which set us free — when its author 
passed away at almost exactly the same hour as 
his life-long friend and co-laborer on the famous 
document, John Adams. 

Monticello, being too expensive to keep up, 
53 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

was soon after exchanged for a modest brick 
house in Charlottesville, and Mrs. Randolph 
and her two unmarried daughters were only 
saved from supporting themselves by teaching, 
through the generosity of Louisiana and North 
Carolina, each of which bestowed upon them 
ten thousand dollars. 

As for that model grandson, Thomas Jeffer- 
son Randolph, he bravely assumed all the debts 
left by his grandfather, which the sale of the 
plantation would not cover, although it handi- 
capped him for life, while his home, Edgehill 
was always open to his mother, sisters and 
brothers. 

It was in visiting among her children then, 
that Patsy's last days were passed, while to 
them she wrote: " My life is a mere shadow 
as regards myself. In you alone I live and am 
attached to it. The useless pleasures which 
still strew my path with flowers — my love for 
plants and books — would be utterly heartless 
and dull, but from the happiness I derive from 
my affections; these make life still dear to me." 



54 



CHAPTER IV 

THE " PRINCE OF AMERICA " AND THE PAYNE 
GIRLS 

ONE May morning, nearly a hundred 
and fifty years ago, in an old North 
Carolina homestead, a little Quaker 
baby first opened her blue eyes upon a world in 
which she was destined to become a very attrac- 
tive figure; and to pass down into history as 
one of the most popular of all the ladies of the 
White House. 

Winsome Dorothy Payne was born at the 
residence of an aunt, but the greater part of her 
childhood was passed at Scotchtown, her fa- 
ther's plantation in Virginia, where she was 
trained in the rigid simplicity of the Society of 
Friends, to which her parents belonged. 

But, although plainness of both dress and 
speech was strongly advocated in the household, 
Mrs. Payne was curiously anxious to preserve 
her little daughter's lovely complexion and the 
pretty damsel was obliged to set off each day 
SS 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

for the old Hanover County field-school, with 
a white linen mask covering her face, a sun- 
bonnet sewed upon her head and long gloves 
protecting her hands and arms — a costume 
which must have been a veritable martyrdom to 
an active child. 

She would, doubtless, have far rather ap- 
peared in the pieces of old-fashioned jewelry, 
secretly bestowed upon her by a fond grand- 
mother, but which she only dared to wear, hid- 
den in a tiny bag, and hung around her neck, 
beneath the demure kerchief, since her father 
and mother condemned all such things as 
" worldly baubles," declaring that a girl's sole 
ornament should be that of " a meek and quiet 
spirit." 

When, then, after a ramble in the woods, one 
fine summer day, chain, bag and finery were all 
found to be missing, she felt it to be a just 
retribution for her sins of vanity and secretive- 
ness, and almost wept her eyes out on the faith- 
ful black breast of " Mother Amy," her dear, 
old Southern " Mammy," the only one to whom 
she ventured to confess her wickedness and the 
loss of her treasures. 

A most devoted servant was this same black 
Amy, and when John Payne — being convinced 
of the evil of slavery — freed his negroes and 

56 



The " Prince of America" 

moved to Philadelphia, she, with a few others, 
begged piteously to remain with " Ole Massa 
and the chillens." This was finally permitted, 
only on condition that she accept remuneration 
for her services, and, as she frugally laid away 
most of her wages, at her death she bequeathed 
five hundred dollars to her beloved mistress. 

It was a vast change from the isolated Vir- 
ginia homestead, to life in a big city, but the 
Payne girls — of whom there were several — 
thoroughly enjoyed the tea-drinkings, sleigh 
rides and other simple amusements that were 
considered seemly for young Quaker folk. 
One, however, I am sure, often longed for the 
pomps and vanities of the " world's people," 
for, at nineteen, Dolly was as beautiful a girl 
as could be found in all Pennsylvania, while 
the gray garb only served to set off her dazzling 
pink and white complexion, her eyes " as blue 
as the fairy flax," and her wealth of glossy 
black tresses. Her pleasant, laughing expres- 
sion, too, was but the outward and visible sign 
of a remarkably amiable disposition, combined 
with a touch of the witty Irish humor, for 
which her second cousin, Patrick Henry, was 
so famous. 

No wonder that the young lawyer, John 
Todd, fell a victim to her charms and, although 
57 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

she at first said him " nay," declaring she never 
meant to marry, continued his addresses until 
at last — perhaps urged by her father — she 
consented, and there was a notable, if quiet, 
ceremony in the Friends' Meeting-House, 
when, like Bayard Taylor's " Quaker bride," 

" Her wedding gown was ashen silk, 
Too simple for her taste; 
She wanted lace about the neck, 
And a ribbon at her waist." 

But alas ! short, though sweet, was their mar- 
ried bliss, for ere long that terrible scourge, yel- 
low fever, snatched away the youthful husband, 
as well as their younger child, a baby of a few 
weeks; and pretty Dolly came back from the 
very jaws of Death, to find herself a widow 
at twenty-two, with a large fortune and one 
dark-eyed boy to care for and to love. 

About this time, there chanced to be in Phila- 
delphia town, an extremely courtly, distin- 
guished gentleman, who was looked upon as " a 
confirmed old bachelor." So, too, he might 
have remained had he not, one day, caught a 
glimpse of the young Quakeress on the street. 
He was attracted at once and hastening to Mr. 
Aaron Burr — who had lodgings at the home 
of Mrs. Payne, Dorothy's mother — begged 
S3 



The " Prince of America" 

that he would take him to call on the " charm- 
ing Widow Todd." 

Mr. Burr willingly consented and the states- 
man was immediately captivated by the demure 
little figure, in mulberry-hued satin, tulle ker- 
chief and dainty cap, who received them; the 
result being that, shortly after, Mrs. Washing- 
ton summoned the young woman to the Presi- 
dential mansion and bluntly asked her: 

" Dolly, is it true that you are engaged to 
James Madison? " 

Blushing and stammering, Dolly said she 
thought not. 

" For if it is so," urged the august dame, 
" do not be ashamed to confess it. Rather be 
proud. He will make you a good husband, and 
all the better for being so much older." 

That the seventeen years' difference in their 
age was not an insuperable objection, goes with- 
out saying, since in the following September a 
merry party set forth on a two-hundred mile 
journey, in carriages and on horseback, the 
" great, little Madison," as he was called, gal- 
lantly riding beside an open barouche contain- 
ing the blooming Quakeress, a blonde girl of 
twelve, and a little boy of three prattling and 
capering in his nurse's arms. 

Their destination was the Southern planta- 
59 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

tion of Mr. Steptoe Washington — Dorothy's 
brother-in-law — and there a jolly country wed- 
ding was celebrated, this time according to the 
rites of the Church of England, which gave 
small Payne Todd a truly kind and considerate 
stepfather, who ever treated him like an own 
son. 

Such a merrymaking as that was! the gay 
girls cutting bits of Mechlin lace from Mr. 
Madison's shirt-ruffles, as mementos; and send- 
ing the bride and groom off in a perfect bliz- 
zard of rice, en route for Montpellier (the 
Madisons always spelled it with two l's), the 
latter's fine estate in the Blue Ridge country, 
where, " within a squirrel's jump of Heaven," 
they chiefly made their home, except when 
called away by affairs of state. 

Such a dear, happy home as it was, too, not 
only for little Payne, but also for Dolly's 
young sister, Anna, who lived with her, and 
whom she looked upon as an adopted child. 

Gay as larks, then, were the two children, 
romping over a glorious playground of three 
thousand acres, where roses, jasmine and other 
blooming things fairly ran riot; where grapes 
seemed bursting with luscious richness, and 
peach and plum trees bowed beneath their 
weight of fruit; while, on rainy days, the grand 
60 



The " Prince of America" 

hall and great porticoes of the house were just 
the places in which to play at dolls, or marbles, 
or tag, or hop-scotch; the blithe little mother 
often coming to join in a frolic, or bid them to 
lessons that were a mere pretense. 

On occasions, too, they paid ceremonial vis- 
its to another inmate of the mansion — 
"Grandma Madison," as Payne called her — 
a very old and stately lady, verging on a hun- 
dred, whose apartments in the " old wing," 
were filled with ancient and beautiful things, 
and whose terraced garden was the pride and 
delight of Beasey, the clever French gardener. 

This " Madam Placid " made a great pet of 
the handsome little lad, and would tell him 
long stories of his stepfather's youthful pranks 
at Princeton, and try to interest him in historic 
events that she could recall, and in his Cousin 
Patrick Henry's illustrious speech, when he 
cried, " Give me liberty or give me death " ! 

But Payne did not care for serious talk, and, 
when it commenced, would soon wander off 
to the negro quarters to listen to their songs 
and curious folk-lore tales. Nevertheless, he 
later became a remarkable French scholar, 
speaking that language almost better than his 
native tongue when placed at a Roman Catholic 
school in Baltimore. 

61 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

A most unworthy son of good old Quaker 
stock was Dolly Madison's only child, always 
showing himself weak and wilful, and, though 
he had an attractive face and much of his 
mother's charm of manner, both were early de- 
stroyed by dissipation, while he soon became a 
sad spendthrift and wasted his fortune in " riot- 
ous living." 

Anna Payne divided her time between Phila- 
delphia and Montpellier, and at fourteen ap- 
peared quite like a young lady, with her hair 
combed over her ears and done up in a knot on 
top of her head, while she dressed in the ex- 
treme fashion of the day, about which there 
was not a suspicion of Quakerism. 

She was a sprightly correspondent, a sympa- 
thetic talker and extremely fond of society and 
dancing; so she had a host of friends. 

Her portrait was painted by the celebrated 
artist, Gilbert Stuart, and is still in the pos- 
session of her descendants. One day, during 
a sitting for this picture, she remarked that it 
was a pity he (the painter) never portrayed 
himself for the benefit of others; on which he 
replied that he would do so on the canvas of 
her portrait, and proceeded to make the drapery 
into a grotesque likeness of his profile, with a 
62 



The " Prince of America" 

most exaggerated nose; and there it remains to 
the present time. 

As mentioned before, when Mrs. Madison 
entered the White House as its mistress, it was 
by no means as a novice, for both she and Miss 
Anna were a great deal there during the Jeffer- 
son administration, being warm friends of Mrs. 
Randolph and her family. Mr. Madison was 
then Secretary of State, and the President fre- 
quently sent for the ladies of his household to 
assist him at dinners and receptions, as well as 
in executing commissions for the daughter and 
granddaughters at Monticello. 

But in 1804 the young matron writes: 

" One of the greatest griefs of my life has 
come to me in the parting for the first time from 
my sister-child." 

For it was in that year that fair Anna wedded 
Richard Cutts, a member of Congress from 
Maine, and it was as a wife and mother that 
she thereafter visited Washington, often bring- 
ing her little ones to see their aunt when she be- 
came " the first lady in the land." 

The spring wedding was a very smart af- 
fair, and presents poured in upon the bride, con- 
spicuous among them being two wine-coolers 
from Madam Dashcoff, the wife of the Russian 
63 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

minister — one being filled with salt, " the es- 
sence of life," and the other with bread, " the 
staff of life," this being the national marriage- 
gift of the donor's country. 

The simple muslin cap was the only trace of 
the sober Friends' garb, now retained by gay, 
lively Dorothea Madison, and this she also dis- 
carded, as unfitting, when her husband was in- 
augurated in 1809, replacing it with a turban, 
a headdress that she continued to wear the rest 
of her life. 

Never, too, had a President a better help- 
meet, even his bitterest enemies (and he had 
many) succumbing on the spot did the gracious 
woman but offer them her snuffbox, with her 
sunny, winning smile. 

During their regime, the White House was 
noted for its whole-souled hospitality and the 
humblest guest was at once set at ease with 
the most graceful courtesy. For instance, at 
one of the levees there appeared a rustic youth, 
who was evidently suffering all the torments of 
embarrassment. He stood around, overcome 
with confusion, but at last ventured to help him- 
self to a cup of coffee. Just then Mrs. Madi- 
son walked up and addressed him. In his sur- 
prise, the young man dropped the saucer and 
strove to crowd the cup into his pocket. But 
64 



The " Prince of America" 

his tactful hostess took no notice of the acci- 
dent, except to observe that in such a crowd no 
one could avoid being jostled, and straightway 
turned the conversation to the lad's family, and 
ended by sending her regards to his excellent 
mother and bidding the servant bring another 
cup of coffee. 

The slaves, too, fairly adored her and at 
Montpellier there was always a flock of small 
darkies at her heels, eager for a word of notice 
and the " sweetie " which never failed them. 

Strange, then, that the sorest trouble of her 
life should have been her son Payne, handsome 
and high-bred though he was. It was the fond 
desire of Mr. and Mrs. Madison that he should 
complete his education at Princeton; but when 
the youth came to the White House from his 
Baltimore university, he showed himself so un- 
willing that the project was given up. The 
President, then — fearing to expose the boy to 
the temptations surrounding one of his station 
at the capital — despatched him with an em- 
bassy to Europe. To this young Todd was also 
somewhat loth, but his reluctance was changed 
to proud delight when he found he was looked 
upon abroad as the " Prince of America," and 
we hear of his dancing with Russian princesses 
within the sacred space reserved for royalty, 
65 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

while such men as Henry Clay and John Quincy 
Adams looked on from the more plebeian gal- 
lery. 

Possessing a fortune in his own right, he 
made the most of his position, tasting all the 
pleasures the Old World could offer, the ele- 
gant Count D'Orsay being one of his boon com- 
panions; but he sadly neglected writing to his 
devoted mother and she had to depend upon 
others for news of her son. 

Meanwhile, the war of 1812 was raging in 
the United States. The British pushed their 
way to Washington and burned the Capitol and 
White House, and Dolly Madison was forced 
to flee, but not until she had seen General Wash- 
ington's portrait cut from its frame and con- 
veyed to a place of safety. So suddenly did all 
this happen that the viands and wines for a 
dinner-party to be given at the Executive Man- 
sion that same afternoon were discovered by 
the English officers and actually demolished; 
while the journals opposed to Madison made 
very merry over his wife's hasty departure, put- 
ting in her mouth this parody of John Gilpin, 
which she is supposed to address to her hus- 
band:- 

" Sister Cutts and Cutts and I 
And Cutts' children three 
66 



The "Prince of America" 

Will fill the coach, — and you must ride 
On horseback after we." 

The White House being in ruins, the remain- 
der of the Madison administration was spent in 
a very elegant and commodious residence be- 
longing to Colonel Tayloe, and known as " The 
Octagon." It is still standing and is endeared 
to the popular heart by the rumor of being 
" haunted." But in the " Peace Winter " of 
1815, it was haunted only by the throng of fair 
women and distinguished men who flocked 
around the fourth President and his winsome 
lady, while, amid these fluctuating times, Mis- 
tress Dorothy's young nieces, Mary and Dolly 
Cutts, were the comfort of her heart, rather 
than the absent son, whose extravagance made 
ruinous inroads upon her inheritance, as well as 
his own. 

James Madison was, also, extremely fond of 
these small maids, and a caller was, one day, 
highly amused at finding the great man wearing 
a bead ring, which one of the wee girlies had 
strung and shipped upon his finger. 

They were always welcome guests, both at 
Washington and Montpellier, as well as their 
brothers, Madison and Richard, the host look- 
ing upon all four as grandchildren, and young 

67 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

people were invited from far and near to meet 
them. 

But, delightful as the little Cutts found the 
Virginia estate, it was not so with Payne, who, 
even after his return to America, seemed to pre- 
fer any other spot, until Mrs. Madison wrote 
him, reproachfully: 

" I am ashamed to tell, when asked, how 
long my only child has been absent from the 
home of his mother." 

She urged him to marry, and he did once fall 
honestly in love with a Miss Ann Cole, a Wil- 
liamsburg belle, who was, however, hard- 
hearted or far-sighted enough to decline his suit. 
Lucky was it, too, for her, as, though popular 
in society, he was a most worthless, dissipated 
young man, indolent, and ever calling upon his 
stepfather for more funds, until even Mont- 
pellier and the negroes were sacrificed to pay his 
debts. Part of the money, however, was sunk 
in an eccentric structure, which he built and 
named " Toddsbirth," and in a futile attempt to 
start a silk farm. 

Developing into a gourmand, he grew ex- 
ceedingly stout, losing all his good looks and 
elegance, and finally died of typhoid fever, two 
years after his disappointed mother passed 
68 



The t( Prince of America" 

away, with the words, " My poor boy! " upon 
her lips. 

A relative writes of this degenerate son of the 
White House: 

" As for my cousin, Payne Todd, my childish 
memories of him do not bear repeating. His 
manners were perfectly Grandisonian, but I was 
a little afraid of him. Do not ask me why." 

So sweet Mistress Dolly's closing days would 
have been desolate, indeed, but for another 
Anna Payne, the child of a brother in Kentucky, 
whom she adopted late in life. This young girl 
was her constant companion after the death of 
Mr. Madison, in 1836, and a veritable sun- 
beam in the home which she made at Wash- 
ington, on Lafayette Square, within a stone's 
throw of the White House. 

A prankish little creature was Anna the Sec- 
ond, and up to all sorts of mischief. Thus, one 
first of April, she invited the one who was then 
President to dine, without mentioning the fact 
to her aunt; and when that worthy lady was 
horrified by the unexpected arrival of so illus- 
trious a guest, flew in and laughingly informed 
them both it was only an " April fool." 

But she sobered down with years and the con- 
stant struggle to keep up appearances on an ex- 
69 



Boys and Girls or the White House 

tremely limited income; was confirmed in old 
St. John's, at the same time as Mary Cutts and 
Mrs. Madison — who had long been an Epis- 
copalian at heart — and became the gentlest of 
nurses to her adopted mother. 

Truly, too, did she prove the hospitable lady's 
" right hand " on such holidays as the Fourth 
of July and New Year's Day, when Mistress 
Dolly's doors were always open, and few who 
came to pay their respects to the Head of the 
Nation in the White House, failed to step across 
the square and offer greetings to the popular 
" dowager." Her levees were ever thronged, 
and a New York merchant, who visited her in 
March, 1842, made this record in his journal: 

" She is a young lady of four-score years and 
upward. Goes to parties and receives company 
like the Queen of this new world." 

The drawing up of her will was, almost, the 
closing act in the career of this remarkable 
woman, who, as it were, " entered Washington 
society on the arm of Jefferson and left it on the 
arm of Polk," her public life, meanwhile, hav- 
ing spanned nearly half a century and covered 
the administrations of nine Presidents. She di- 
vided her small property equally between her 
" dear son, John Payne Todd," and her 
<l adopted daughter, Annie Payne " ; and the last 
70 



The " Prince of America" 

dastardly, though futile deed of the former, was 
an attempt to break this will and deprive the de- 
voted niece of her little inheritance. 

One who intimately knew this bright maiden, 
afterward the wife of Dr. Causten, has said of 
her, — 

" Anna Payne was not handsome, her fea- 
tures being irregular; but her devotion to Mrs. 
Madison entitles her to the best rewards of 
Heaven. She was one of the few purely un- 
selfish persons whom one may met in a life- 
time." 

Could higher praise be bestowed upon the 
youngest and last of the pleasant Payne girls ! 



71 



CHAPTER V 

THE ARISTOCRATIC MONROES 

JUST as the eighteenth century was draw- 
ing to a close, there was established at St. 
Germains, not many leagues from Paris, 
one of the most remarkable schools that France 
has probably ever known. 

Its founder and head was Madame Campan, 
an aristocrat of the aristocrats, who had lived 
at court from early girlhood, been the confi- 
dante of monarchs, and would willingly have 
gone to the prison and the scaffold with her 
royal mistress, the lovely and unfortunate Marie 
Antoinette. 

But this last was not to be her fate, and, the 
Reign of Terror leaving her penniless, she was 
forced to turn her talents to account and take 
up teaching — for which she had always had a 
penchant — in the seminary, where children 
born to the purple and those of humble paren- 
tage met on an equal footing, and were con- 
72 



The Aristocratic Monroes 

ducted, side by side, up the steep, rugged hill of 
learning. 

Among the pupils at this celebrated pension 
there was, at one time, a young American girl, 
a pretty, gipsy-like little maid, with soft, dark 
eyes, black, glossy hair, and the roses of her 
native Virginia blooming in her cheeks. 

This was Eliza Monroe, the seven-year-old 
daughter of James Monroe, then Minister to 
France, and his beautiful wife, who, as Miss 
Kortwright, had been a Tory belle of old New 
York, and who was known abroad as la belle 
Americaine. 

Small Eliza made many friends during her 
rather lengthy sojourn among the vivacious 
French girls, — two of them being Madame 
Campan's nieces, the Mesdemoiselles Anguie, 
whose mother had committed suicide in order to 
escape the guillotine. Not far away, too, at a 
boys' school, was her cousin Joseph and a young 
friend named Rutledge, both of whom had been 
placed under the envoy's paternal care, and in 
whom he took a deep interest. 

But dearest of all to her was a lassie some 

years older than herself — interesting Hor- 

tense, the daughter of Josephine de Beauharnais, 

who was pursuing her education at St. Germains, 

73 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

together with the youthful brothers and sisters 
of Napoleon, and who was destined, one day, 
to become the Queen of Holland. 

Indeed, this famous seminary was full of un- 
fledged sovereigns, so that, in later life, Ma- 
dame Campan laughingly declared to an old 
pupil: 

" I was the instructress of a nest of kings and 
queens without ever dreaming of such a thing, 
and the best thing you can do is to forget your 
titles when with me, for I can never be afraid 
of queens whom I have held under the rod." 

Not that the rod was often called into requi- 
sition other than figuratively, for a small book, 
in which was recorded a tally of " good points " 
and " bad points," and a system of good and 
bad tickets, was generally sufficient to keep the 
most unruly in order. 

One good point effaced two bad ones, but 
did any pupil receive twelve black tickets her 
punishment was to dine alone at what was 
termed the " Wooden Table," because it had no 
cloth, with her offense inscribed in large letters 
on a framed pasteboard before her, — a meal 
which usually proved a fast, passed in floods of 
tears, so terribly did the girls dread this dis- 
grace. 

But the wise instructress knew the value of 
74 



The Aristocratic Monroes 

prizes, as well as of discipline, and these were 
bestowed with a lavish hand wherever merited. 

The most coveted was that given for superior 
character, although it was only a simple arti- 
ficial rose to be worn on Sundays and holidays. 
This was awarded by vote in each class ever}' 
three months, and the proud rose-pupils were 
the following day treated to a particularly nice 
breakfast by their kind teacher, while it was 
their privilege to walk first in all processions and 
to strew flowers at the festivals held in the pri- 
vate chapel. 

Was any scholar, too, so lucky, or so amiable, 
as to win a rose in every class throughout her 
school-course, at its close she received the Rose 
of Roses, presented in a vase of porcelain, with 
the date upon it in golden numbers. Truly a 
scholastic honor to be striven for, and, when 
gained, to be treasured through life! 

How many roses of honor fell to the share of 
Mademoiselle Elise, as she was called, history, 
saith not, but it is certain she and Hortense were 
very happy together, wandering through the 
grand old forest of St. Germains; taking their 
turns at saying " grace " in the quaint little din- 
ing-room pulpit; and learning to sew and cook 
and clean and mend lace, as well as to play and 
draw, and recite long extracts from the dramas 
75 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

of Racine and Madame de Genlis. They, too, 
no doubt took their parts in the representations 
of " Esther " and other plays, to which Bona- 
parte came, on the invitation of his stepdaugh- 
ter, and which were enacted in the hall of exer- 
cises, beneath the inscription, " Talents are the 
ornament of the rich, and the wealth of the 
poor." 

For, Madame Campan, grande dame though 
she was, believed in preparing her young charges 
for all the changes and chances that so often be- 
fall one in this fickle world, although she trained 
them " to avoid making domestic details the 
subject of conversation in the drawing-room, for 
that is a most decided mark of ill-breeding. It 
is proper for all to know how to do and direct, 
but it is only for ill-educated women to talk 
about their carriages, servants, washing and 
cooking." 

Until a well-grown maiden of " sweet six- 
teen," Eliza was the sole child of the Monroes' 
hearth and home; but then another little girl 
came to share their affections. She was chris- 
tened Maria, and, as a mite of four, astonished 
the good people of Virginia, when taken back 
there arrayed in the latest French fashion, with 
long pantalettes down to her ankles. 

This younger daughter was a girl of four- 

76 



The Aristocratic Monroes 

teen when her father was elected President and 
the family moved to the new White House, 
which was completed just in time for them. 
To her, too, fell the honor of being the first 
bride to be wedded in the great East Room, 
where, at seventeen, she gave her heart and 
hand to her cousin, Samuel Gouverneur. 

Mrs. Monroe was somewhat of an invalid, 
so the burden of social duties at the Executive 
Mansion fell largely to Eliza, who, long ere 
this, had developed from the demure little 
school girl into the extremely elegant and ac- 
complished Mrs. George Hay, the wife of a 
Virginia judge. 

She was equal to the occasion, but it must be 
conceded that she was a rather haughty young 
woman and carried things with a pretty high 
hand. Perhaps her European education had 
unfitted her for life in a republic; but, however 
that may be, the Monroe ladies all won the 
name of being very exclusive; refused to return 
visits, and gave sore offense to the families of 
Senators and Representatives accustomed to the 
genial courtesy of winsome Queen Dolly and 
" Little Jim Madison." 

Magnificent as the presidential dinners were, 
graced by the richest of silver plate; and cheery 
as were the vast rooms, brightened by open fires 
77 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

of blazing hickory logs, questions of " prece- 
dent " caused many a heart-burning and were 
resented even by those who deeply admired the 
tall, rugged head of the nation in his old style, 
small clothes, silk hose and knee buckles, and 
whose frank, open expression showed him truly 
worthy of Jefferson's encomium — " Monroe is 
so honest that if you turned his soul inside out, 
there would not be a spot on it." 

Mrs. Hay received in great state and was 
regal-looking in her robe of crimson velvet 
with nodding white plumes in her hair, while 
by her side frequently appeared her beautiful 
little daughter, Hortensia, named for the dear 
friend of her youth who was also the child's 
godmother, and who early heard reminiscences 
of her royal sponsor. 

Nor did the Queen of Holland forget her 
American namesake, for she sent her several 
valuable gifts, among them being a picture of 
herself, one of her brother Eugene de Beau- 
harnais, and one of Madame Campan, while 
she cordially wrote to her old schoolmate: 

" You ought to have received our portraits 
for your daughter — our goddaughter. Al- 
though I have never received your letter on this 
subject, yet I take the right that you have given 
me over her and send you a little chain of the 



The Aristocratic Monroes 

country where I live, and which I pray you 
to make her wear as a souvenir of me." 

These mementos, together with a miniature 
of Mrs. Monroe painted while she was in Paris, 
have been carefully preserved by a Baltimore 
family and there is also reason to believe that 
the royal lady of Holland remembered her 
American namesake in her last will. 

So handsome Hortensia Hay became early 
accustomed to formal and state occasions in 
her distinguished grandfather's house and was 
merely a graceful slip of a maiden when she 
helped her elegant mother welcome and enter- 
tain General Lafayette at Oak Hill, their fine 
Virginia home. 

She, however, grew up a sadly willful girl, 
and married sorely against her parents' wishes, 
becoming the second wife of Lord Rogers of 
Baltimore, with whom she was most unhappy. 

But through all these years of joy and sorrow, 
Eliza's heart ever reverted with longing and 
affection to la belle France, where so much of 
her blithe, careless girlhood had been spent, un- 
til, finding herself widowed and childless, she 
determined to end her days on the other side 
of the Atlantic, which she did, dwelling for a 
number of years in Paris, and being finally 
buried in Pere-la-Chaise. 
79 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

Maria was very different from her sister, 
and, doubtless, a more congenial companion to 
Mr. Monroe, whose doctrine was always 
" America for Americans." 

She found her happiness in her native land, 
surrounded by her children and grandchildren; 
and one descendant of our fifth President, who 
bears his name, remembers the devoted 
" grandma," with whom, as a tiny chap, he 
made delightful pilgrimages to Mrs. Clitz's 
toy-shop in Washington, there to purchase fasci- 
nating playthings; and who was the "Lady 
Bountiful " of Oak Hill, dispensing her charity 
to the poor, for miles around. 

The Gouverneurs' own home, however, was 
in New York and there Mr. Monroe spent 
much time with them, after the loss of his wife. 
There, too, he passed away, like so many of 
his predecessors, on the Fourth of July, in 
1831. 

Many years after, the loyal sons of the Old 
Dominion removed his body to Richmond in or- 
der that it might lie in the soil of his native 
state. In that Southern clime, likewise, in a 
grave on the Oak Hill estate, ever kept green 
by masses of luxuriant myrtle, now peacefully 
sleeps the first bride of the White House and 
the youngest of the aristocratic Monroes. 
80 



CHAPTER VI 

THE COSMOPOLITAN ADAMS FAMILY 

NO man ever had a more cosmopolitan 
family than Mr. John Quincy Adams, 
the precocious Braintree boy, of whom 
we have heard before as the son of our second 
President, and who served his country in so 
many foreign lands. 

His delicate, intellectual wife, Miss Louisa 
Catherine Johnson, though of American par- 
entage, was born in England and passed the 
greater part of her girlhood in France. She 
met the young diplomat while her father was 
United States Consul in London, and their chil- 
dren could claim to represent three countries 
by the right of birth. 

There was the small German, George Wash- 
ington, the first-born, who came to delight the 
parents' hearts at Berlin ; the two little Yankees, 
John and Charles Francis, who first saw the 
light in " good old Boston towne," and the 
baby Russian, the only daughter, named for her 
81 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

mother, who opened her eyes for one brief 
twelve-month in St. Petersburg, and then closed 
them forever, fading into a mere sweet mem- 
ory, left among the ice and snow in the realm 
of the Imperial Czar. 

Oh, that exile in Russia! For so Mrs. 
Adams ever considered it and sorely she chafed 
at the separation from her two eldest sons left, 
with their grandparents, on this side of the 
ocean. It was probably the dreariest time of 
her whole life, although her husband held the 
proud position of first minister to that most au- 
gust of courts, was treated with distinguished 
kindness by the Emperor and his courtiers, and 
their life was a brilliant round of balls, fetes, 
dinners, court presentations, launches, displays 
of fireworks, birthday festivities, parades, bap- 
tisms, plays, state funerals, illuminations, and 
Te Deums for victory; in short, every species of 
social gayety and public pageant, all of which 
Mr. Adams carefully recorded in his volumi- 
nous diary. 

She had, however, for her comfort and com- 
panion during these six years Charles Francis, a 
baby of two when he went abroad, but who 
blossomed into an extremely handsome and ac- 
complished little lad with the linguistic talent of 
a veritable Russian, being able to chatter in 
82 



The Cosmopolitan Adams Family 

French and German as well as in the tongue ot 
the country where he lived, while he could re- 
peat from memory all of Addison's version of 
the nineteenth and twenty-third Psalms. He 
was, though, inclined to be rather shy and quiet, 
even when taken to the palace, where he was 
a great pet, and was made much of by the Em- 
press and grand duchesses. 

Charles was the only one of the brothers 
who knew the infant sister, Louisa Catherine, 
while he was his mother's sole escort — besides 
servants — when in the spring of 1815 she 
made a perilous journey across what might be 
called the battlefield of Europe, for war was 
everywhere, and traces of carnage on all sides. 

Often the boy of seven shivered with fear 
as they drove through dense forests echoing 
with the cries of wild beasts, floundered in 
snowdrifts, and listened to grim predictions of 
future trouble, while the scenes in the streets 
of Paris on the night after Napoleon's return 
from Elba were stamped indelibly upon his 
childish mind. But at length London was 
reached in safety and there came a joyful re- 
union of the whole family. 

In the meantime, while Charles was learning 
to be a little courtier, George and John were 
leading healthy, active, out-door lives on their 
83 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

grandfather's farm at Quincy, and there they 
had as companions two bright young girl cous- 
ins — the orphan daughters of the uncle for 
whom their younger brother was named. One 
was Abigail Adams the third, and the other the 
high-spirited Susanna who once had the fracas 
with little Ann Black and was a very small 
" White House girl " when John Adams was 
President. 

They were a gay quartette, wandering over 
Penn Hill, running, when hungry, to the 
" cookie bag " that grandma always kept hang- 
ing at the head of the cellar stairs; celebrating 
with enthusiastic patriotism the Fourth of July, 
which was also John's birthday; and in the Holi- 
days watching eagerly for a queer old pen- 
sioner who always came at that season and 
whom they dubbed " Father Christmas," al- 
though he carried away a gift instead of bring- 
ing one. That, however, was probably because 
he bore a staff bedecked with brightly-polished 
apples and sang them a quaint little song: 

" I wish you a merry Christmas 
And a happy New Year, 
A pocket full of money and a 
Cellar full of beer." 

But even in childhood an eternity of six years 
84 



The Cosmopolitan Adams Family 

eventually comes to an end, and at last a letter 
arrived which summoned the boys to join their 
parents in London, and they bade a long " fare- 
well " to the kind grandfather and grand- 
mother, the merry cousins, and the pleasant 
New England farm. 

Mr. John Quincy Adams had then been trans- 
ferred to the Court of St. James, so the trio of 
reunited brothers went to English schools, had 
interesting glimpses of high life and heard a 
vast deal of talk about court etiquette and court 
cards and clothes, and had many a hearty repub- 
lican laugh, too, over what they considered " ab- 
surd nonsense." 

But when a certain royal princess was mar- 
ried they were treated to some of the wedding 
cake and found it very good, and John, at least, 
always remembered the time he went to see the 
grand show on the occasion of the Queen's birth- 
day drawing-room. The state coach was so 
magnificent, with its eight cream-colored horses 
and golden harness adorned with blue ribbon 
bows, while it was so gloriously exciting when 
the rude populace hissed the prince regent and 
pelted his carriage with stones and mud. 

I wonder if they were not a bit sorry when 
Mr. Adams was recalled to Washington and 
appointed by Monroe Secretary of State (an of- 
85 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

fice which has so often proved a stepping-stone 
to the Presidency), for the Federal city was at 
that time anything but an agreeable place of 
abode. 

As a well-known writer says: " What must 
European diplomats have thought of a capital 
city where snakes two feet long invaded gentle- 
men's drawing-rooms and a carriage, bringing 
home the guests from a ball, could be upset by 
the impenetrable depth of quagmire at the very 
door of a foreign minister's residence." 

Society, too, was almost as stupid as the 
streets, though gambling ran shamefully high in 
certain sets. To enliven things the Adamses 
gave weekly parties, and Monsieur De Neuville 
entertained at grand dinners when he mystified 
the plain Yankees by serving " turkeys without 
bones, puddings in the form of fowls, fresh cod 
disguised as a salad, and celery like oysters." 
This French Minister also shocked the New 
England ladies by having dancing on Saturday 
nights, which they had been taught to consider 
" holy time." 

Still the boys must have rejoiced when their 

father was elected President, and, perhaps, they 

were in the old Quincy church on that Sabbath 

morning when the horse's hoofs clattering 

86 



The Cosmopolitan Adams Family 

through the streets brought the congregation to 
its feet crying out " What is the matter? " 

In these days of telegraphs and telephones it 
is hard to realize how long it took news to 
travel in those bygone times, and relays of 
horses and riders were hired to carry word of 
Mr. Adams' victory from Washington to his 
home town, where they arrived on Sunday. An 
old resident of Boston thus recalls the event as 
it was told to him in his youth. 

" The courier bringing the news of Mr. 
Adams' election had urged his horse with so 
much speed that the sweat and foam were roll- 
ing off the horse's back, and the courier arrived 
at the old church door and hurried up the steps 
and then down the broad aisle and shouted in 
stentorian tones, ' John Quincy Adams is elected 
President of the United States.' Prayer and 
praise were discontinued, and congratulations 
were offered to one another that the good town 
of Quincy had been honored by having another 
President of the United States, and among the 
number who heard the report of the courier, 
and whose heart was brimful of joy, was the 
venerable John Adams, ex-President and father 
of John Quincy Adams. Mr. John Adams was 
89 years old, and his heart was full of joy to 
87 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

think that his little son, now grown to man's 
estate, yes, ' little Johnny,' was elected Presi- 
dent." 

The Adams lads, however, were away from 
home a great deal at this period, each going, in 
turn, to Harvard, although George was the only 
one who made much of a mark there. He was 
truly a gifted youth, eloquent, a student of 
Shakespeare and something of a poet as well. 
On completing his college course he studied law 
with Daniel Webster and represented Boston 
in the State Legislature. 

It was a sad pity that a young man of so 
much promise should have fallen a victim to 
intemperate habits. He was lost overboard 
from a steamboat, his career being cut short at 
the early age of twenty-eight. 

This catastrophe did not occur, however, until 
after the close of his father's administration, 
and George was frequently drawn to the White 
House, not only by filial affection, but by the 
magnet of a pair of bright eyes belonging to a 
certain pretty cousin, Mary Hellen, who was 
there to assist her aunt in the duties of her ex- 
alted position. 

But the maiden fair smiled not upon brilliant 
George, but upon his handsomer though more 
hot-tempered brother John, who was Mr. 



The Cosmopolitan Adams Family 

Adams' secretary, and one winter night there 
was a small, old-fashioned wedding in the Blue 
Room, when they " passed the cake through 
the ring " and cut generous plummy slices for 
all the guests. 

Bookish, taciturn Charles Francis was now 
the young man of the house, having just left 
his alma mater, and, after all, he was the 
one who made the deepest impression upon 
his day and generation, and is best remembered 
as an author and statesman, while he went as 
Minister to Great Britain during the war of 
the Rebellion. Wedding a lady of wealth, 
he passed his summers at the old Quincy home- 
stead, where he collected mementos of his dis- 
tinguished family and which is now preserved as 
a historic landmark dear to all loyal Americans. 

Altogether, the White House under Quincy 
Adams was a very homelike, cheerful place witn 
wooings and weddings, christenings and social 
gatherings and was especially so after the ad- 
vent of Mr. and Mrs. John's infant daughter, 
Mary Louise. 

Such a winsome little creature as she was! 
and what a grand evening baptism she had when 
the most noted men of the day came to bow 
low before her small ladyship, and her stately 
godfather, General Stephen Van Renssalaer, 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

" the last of the Patroons," brought an exquisite 
set of Cupid cameos to lay at her chubby, dim- 
pled feet. 

" Looly," as they fondly called the cherished 
baby, was the jolliest of children, playing with 
" Sally," a big rag doll, manufactured by her 
great-aunt, Mrs. Thomas Adams; lisping 
Mother Goose's Melodies and dancing " Jim 
Crow," in the pleasant room fitted up as a 
nursery, which was now the most attractive spot 
in the great, rambling mansion. She was her 
grandfather's darling, for cold and austere as 
John Quincy Adams was generally considered, 
he is said to have been most affectionate in his 
family relations. He it was who taught the 
wee maid her alphabet and delighted to have 
her read to him out of the Bible, ever his fa- 
vorite book, and in which he made it a practice 
to peruse three chapters every day. 

The President liked, too, to have other rela- 
tives with him and among those who often vis- 
ited him was his niece, Susanna, the lively mad 
cap of the Quincy farm, now a blithe young 
widow. When a girl in her teens, she went, 
with her grandmother, to a ball in Boston, and, 
being in light mourning, wore a short, black 
satin frock, black silk stockings and black satin 
slippers. To the dance came, likewise, several 
90 



The Cosmopolitan Adams Family 

officers from a United States man-of-war, lying 
at anchor in the harbor, and, among them a 
youthful Marylander, who was an utter stran- 
ger. 

" Whom would you like to be presented to? " 
someone asked him. 

" That is the prettiest foot here," he replied, 
glancing around the ball-room and selecting 
Miss Susan's black satin slippers which, straight- 
way, tripped, Cinderella-wise, into his heart; for 
the Southern lieutenant became her husband and 
she Mrs. Clark. 

She was a bright, witty young widow, though, 
when her uncle was in the White House, and 
had a little Susy of her own, while in later life, 
she married again and became very well known 
as Mrs. Treadway. 

Other nieces and nephews also flocked around 
the great man and it was two of these who 
hastened, with Madam Adams, to his side when, 
after fifteen years of hard Congressional work, 
he died, as he had lived, in his country's service. 

Stricken down at his post, he passed away 
beneath the dome of the Capitol, his final words 
being, "This is the last of earth! I am con- 
tent!" 

Borne back to the place of his birth, he lies 
buried " under the portal of the church at 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

Quincy," while, with him and his gentle wife 
ended the statesmen and ladies of the Revolu- 
tion, leaving two Adams boys to hand down 
their illustrious name. 



92 



CHAPTER VII 

INDIAN LINCOYER AND THE MERRY ANDREWS 

WAS there ever a stranger and more va- 
ried career than that of the hero of 
New Orleans and our seventh Presi- 
dent — quick-tempered, kind-hearted Andrew 
Jackson, a man without fear if not altogether 
without reproach! 

The son of a Scotch-Irish emigrant, born in 
the backwoods after his father's death, running 
barefooted about Waxhaw and learning the 
" three R's " from his hard-working mother, 
and, later, at an old-field school in the pine 
woods, being taken prisoner at fourteen and 
boldly refusing to black a British officer's boots, 
teaching a few pupils, studying law, fighting 
duels as well as Indians, and leading the army 
to victory against a foreign foe — his whole 
progress from log-cabin to White House reads 
like a boy's serial story, replete with adventure. 
During the Revolution many skirmishing 
parties invaded the Carolinas, and one vacation- 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

time Andrew and his brother Robert attached 
themselves as supernumeraries, to Major Da-. 
vie's Dragoons. Probably they only helped with 
the horses and performed small chores, but they 
were present at the famous little battle of Hang- 
ing Rock and then had their first taste of war, 
while they also assisted their mother in caring 
for the wounded in an improvised hospital in a 
church. 

Later, in a hot struggle at Waxhaw, when 
their cousin's house was pillaged and his wife 
and children cruelly treated, the Jackson boys, 
with others, were taken prisoners. 

It was at this time that a British officer or- 
dered Andrew to black his boots. Indignantly 
the lad refused, declaring that he was a prisoner 
of war and should be treated as such. 

" Insolent young coxcomb! " we can imagine 
the Tory crying, and, lifting his saber, he struck 
him such bloody blows over head and arms that 
the youth bore the scars to his grave. Failing 
with Andrew, the red coat turned to his 
brother with the same haughty command and 
received the same defiant answer, at which he 
punished him, too, and both boys were hurried 
off to a stockade prison at Camden, where they 
contracted smallpox, of which Robert died, and 
Andrew just escaped with his life. 
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Indian Lincoyer 



Also losing his mother, who likewise fell a 
martyr to the cause, the lonely young orphan 
wandered across the mountains to Tennessee and 
there, for a time, took up the more peaceful 
battles of the law- 
While a law student, though, he seemed en- 
grossed by sports rather than books, for as a 
contemporary said : " Andrew Jackson was 
the most roaring, rollicking, game-cocking, 
horse-racing, card-playing, mischievous fellow 
that ever lived in Salisbury," while many a 
prank was traced to his door. In the course of 
time, too, he returned to his early love of war- 
fare during the Indian uprisings and conflict of 
1812. But whatever he was to men, to women 
he was always charming from the sincere and 
chivalrous respect he felt for all the sex; al- 
though the one romance of his life was his 
courtship and marriage with sprightly black- 
eyed Rachel Donelson, the divorced wife of a 
certain unworthy Captain Robards, who proved 
a true and devoted helpmeet to the valiant Gen- 
eral and made a real home of the " Hermit- 
age," their two-story log house in Tennessee, 
where rich and poor were always welcome, do- 
ing much to gain for her husband the title of 
" The Prince of Hospitality." 

Having no family of his own, Mr. Jackson 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

was ever ready to open his heart and home to 
all relatives of his wife and into them one day 
crept a three-days-old infant — one of twin 
boys born to Rachel's brother — and so speedily 
did this child win his baby-way that he adopted 
him for his own, gave him his name, and, in 
time, made him the heir to all he possessed. 

Free and happy as a squirrel of the wild 
woods, then, small Andy grew up on the se- 
cluded plantation, and one of the old soldier's 
staff liked to tell of a visit he once paid at the 
Hermitage. 

It was a cold, rainy evening in early spring 
when he rode up to the door and he was wont to 
say: 

" I came upon General Jackson in the twi- 
light, sitting alone before the fire, a lamb and 
a child between his knees. Seeing me he called 
a servant to remove the two innocents to another 
room and said that the child had cried because 
the lamb was out in the cold and begged him to 
bring it in, which he had done to please the 
child — his adopted son, then not two years 
old." 

This was truly characteristic of the man who 

was ready to share his last morsel of food — a 

handful of acorns — with a starving comrade; 

who walked five hundred miles, from Natchez 

96 



Indian Lincoyer 



to Nashville, in order that his sick soldiers 
might ride, thus being declared " tough as 
hickory," and earning his title of " Old Hick- 
ory," and who rescued a miserable Indian pa- 
poose and brought it up beneath the shelter of 
his own roof. 

This last incident occurred shortly after some 
cruel outrages of the red men had set the whole 
southwestern country agog, and they were even 
planning an attack upon Mobile. General 
Jackson's troops, however, were sent to put them 
down and a fierce encounter took place at the 
Indian village of Talluschatches, where many 
savages were slain and captured. 

After the battle, a Creek squaw, struck down 
by a stray bullet, was found dead, while on her 
bosom nestled a live infant, vainly endeavoring 
to procure its natural sustenance. This poor, 
brown waif was borne into camp, but not one 
of the captive women could be induced to nour- 
ish it. 

" No," said they gloomily, " all his relations 
are dead; kill him too." 

But not so thought the commander-in-chief, 
and, taking the little fellow to his tent, he kept 
him alive on brown sugar and water until he 
could be sent to the city of Nashville for better 
care. There, then, he remained until the end 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

of the campaign, being nursed at the General's 
expense, while later his benefactor carried him 
home with him to the Hermitage. 

Mrs. Jackson received the baby red-skin cor- 
dially; he was christened Lincoyer and grew up 
a pet in the household, receiving the same edu- 
cation as the planters' sons in the neighborhood. 
So you see there was no lack of young life on 
the Tennessee plantation, while, soon after, an- 
other namesake of Old Hickory's, Andy Don- 
elson, also came there to live, and can you not 
imagine what jolly times the two merry An- 
drews and their nut-brown companion must have 
had together, hunting and fishing, swimming in 
the streams, climbing the fruit trees and waxing 
hale and hearty on the proverbial hog and hom- 
iny! 

The good-humored house-mother watched 
over and beamed upon them as though they 
had been her very own trio of sons, and often, 
too, there was a pretty little auburn-haired girl 
cousin at the Hermitage, winning all hearts by 
her sweet smile and gentle ways, and to one at 
least of the boys becoming his beau ideal of per- 
fect maidenhood. 

" Lovely Emily " was what everyone called 
Captain John Donelson's youngest daughter, 
even when she was only a little schoolgirl going 
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Indian Lincoyer 



to the old Academy in Nashville, and she was 
but a lass of sixteen when she married her kins- 
man, Andrew Donelson, the third Hermitage 
boy, who later became private secretary at the 
White House. 

As for Lincoyer, he developed into a finely- 
formed youth, full of promise and the joy and 
pride of the General, who was extremely fond 
of him. At the proper age he was allowed to 
choose a trade and selected that of harness-mak- 
ing, to which he was apprenticed. But it did 
not agree with the forest-born orphan, and be- 
fore he reached his seventeenth year he fell a 
victim to that dread enemy of his race, con- 
sumption, and though carefully nursed by kind 
Aunt Rachel, pined away and was laid to rest 
beneath the shades of his foster home. 

But there were many happy years ere these 
changes came to pass, to say naught of that 
dreadful Christmastide when the father was 
away defending New Orleans against a besieg- 
ing British foe. How eagerly and anxiously 
they must have waited and looked for news un- 
til word came of the glorious victory of Jan- 
uary 8th, 1 8 15, and of the honors showered 
upon the gallant commander, who was hailed 
as the liberator of the Crescent City! How, 
too, their young hearts must have swelled with 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

pride when told of their adopted parent, the 
hero of the hour, being escorted to the cathedral 
by children, strewing flowers and chanting an 
ode in his praise, and of the bishop crowning 
him with a chaplet of laurel. 

I fancy, too, that little seven-year-old Andrew 
Jackson, Jr., fairly capered with delight when 
informed that he was to go with his mother to 
New Orleans, and that he ever remembered the 
distinguished attentions there paid them — be- 
ing too young to have the memory marred by 
the fact that the General and his backwoods 
wife rather shocked the society of the Southern 
metropolis by dancing a breakdown at a public 
ball. They were both rough diamonds, but 
true gems, well worth the polishing, and Mr. 
Jackson was devoted to his " bonnie brown 
wife," never missing an opportunity of show- 
ing that he considered her the perfection of her 
sex and the most delightful woman in the whole 
world. 

Indeed, this man, who was sometimes so iras- 
cible and almost savage, was never even impa- 
tient with wife, children or servants. He dearly 
loved his home and " The visitor," says a con- 
temporary, " could often see the General seated 
in his rocking-chair, with a chubby boy wedged 
ioo 



Indian Lincoyer 



in on each side of him and a third perhaps in his 
lap, while he was trying to read the newspa- 
per." Yet this was the man who, in Boston, 
used to be held up to young folks as an ogre 
to frighten them into obedience. In a letter 
preserved by Fiske, was written in after-years, 
" It has been pleasant to revise many of my 
ideas and opinions; for my youthful memory 
goes back to the days when Jackson was like 
a bogy to frighten naughty children ! Boston 
was a place of one idea then." 

But time flies fast even in the secluded rural 
corner of Tennessee, where, after the war, Old 
Hickory built a fine new Hermitage, replacing 
the old log house by a commodious mansion of 
brick, adorned with Corinthian pillars, and with 
the hall hung with scenes from Telemachus. 
Before, too, one realized it, the boys had shot 
up into men, and a Western paper was suggest- 
ing the hero of New Orleans as a candidate for 
the Presidency. 

At first people considered this a joke — the 
tall, lank, sandy-haired frontiersman was so dif- 
ferent from the courtly gentlemen who had held 
the position, that he was not their ideal for the 
head of the nation. Indeed, he laughed at the 
idea himself, saying: 

IOI 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

" No, no! They may send me out to fight 
the Indians, but I shall never do for a Presi- 
dent." 

Nevertheless, the hint took root and spread 
until it ended in his nomination and election. 

Mrs. Jackson was not over-pleased, and she 
was never happy afterward. The calumnies 
heaped upon her husband during the campaign 

— calumnies in which she, owing to some irreg- 
ularity in their marriage, was unfortunately 
mixed up — sunk deep into her sensitive heart 
already weakened by disease and she died be- 
tween the election and inauguration. 

Jackson felt this most keenly and was furious 
against the newspapers which had maligned 
them both. Shortly after the funeral, while 
arranging some flowers on her grave, he sud- 
henly clasped his hands and turning to his 
adopted son, young Andrew Jackson, and others 
who stood by, declared: "She was murdered 

— murdered by slanderers that pierced her 
heart. May God Almighty forgive her mur- 
derers, as I know she forgave them. I never 
can." 

He never did, and it was a very sad and truly 
bereaved man who finally entered the Executive 
Mansion. 

But for Emily and Andrew, the new Chief 
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Indian Lincoyer 



Magistrate would now have been desolate in- 
deed. The former, as wife of the private sec- 
retary, did all she could to fill her aunt's place, 
while the adopted son brought a Philadelphia 
bride to share with his charming cousin the cares 
and pleasures of the White House. 

The President always called young Mrs. 
Donelson " my daughter," and deferred to her 
in all matters of etiquette, saying: 

" You know best, my dear. Do as you 
please." 

A most pleasing and gracious hostess, too, the 
Nashville girl proved, and one who is said to 
have curiously resembled Mary, Queen of 
Scots. On one occasion a foreign minister re- 
marked to her in some surprise: "Madam, 
you dance with the grace of a Parisian. I can 
hardly realize you were educated in Tennes- 
see." To which she responded with spirit: 
" Count, you forget that grace is a cosmopolite, 
and, like a wild flower, is much oftener found in 
the woods than in the streets of a city." 

Her four children were all born in the White 
House. Of course there was an Andrew 
named for his illustrious great-uncle, a small 
John and two bonny girlies, and again, there 
were grand christenings in the great East Room, 
with its French furniture, crowned by the 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

American eagle. The President, himself, stood 
for two of them, Mr. Van Buren for a third, 
and General Polk for the youngest. 

Fairly idolized, too, were these little folks by 
the hero of New Orleans, who took the deepest 
interest in all that concerned them. When, too, 
the corner stone of the Treasury Building was 
laid and he was asked for a souvenir to deposit 
beneath it, he called for a pair of shears and, 
clipping a cluster of curls from the sunny pate 
of the, then, " White House baby," gave that to 
the messenger, with the order that it be placed 
in the corner-stone box as the " presidential 
memento." 

Does it not seem strange, then, that many 
years after, in the very structure beneath which 
rests the curl of the Donelson infant, there was 
employed a gray-haired, sweet-faced woman of 
more than three-score, , who could remember 
when she was little Mary Emily Donelson, a 
veritable White House girl ! As for the boys, 
Andrew became a captain of engineers in the 
United States army, but faded away like poor 
Lincoyer in early manhood, while John fell at 
the battle of Chickamauga, fighting in defense 
of the Confederate cause. 

Before, however, President Jackson's second 
term had drawn to a close, failing health forced 
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Indian Lincoyer 



" lovely Emily " to retire from Washington to 
Tulip Grove, her beautiful Tennessee home. 
Here she rapidly became weaker and a pretty 
incident is told of her sitting one evening by 
an open window admiring the winter sunset, 
when a bird entered and, flying several times 
around the room, alighted upon her chair. 

One of the children uttered an exclamation 
and tried to catch it, but the mother restrained 
him, " Do not disturb it, darling," she said. 
" Maybe it comes to bid me prepare for my 
flight to another world. I leave you here, but 
the Heavenly Father who shelters and provides 
for this poor little bird this wintry day, will also 
watch over and take care of you all when I am 
gone. Don't forget mama; love her always, 
and try to live so we may all meet again in 
heaven." 

A few days later the quartette of little ones 
was left motherless. 

Young Andrew Jackson and his wife, hence- 
forth kindly cared for the old gentleman in the 
White House. She, highly cultured and ac- 
complished, had, as Sarah Yorke, been the pet 
of a large circle of friends in the Quaker City, 
and the President was devoted to her. 

One day, when a deputation from the Key- 
stone State visited him, he welcomed them with : 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

" Gentlemen, I am very glad to see you, for I 
am much indebted to Pennsylvania. She has 
given me a daughter who is a great comfort to 
her father." 

After the expiration of his administration the 
family all journeyed back to the old plantation, 
where they made their home together. 

It took a month to make the trip and the ex- 
President's favorite grandchild, Rachel Jack- 
son (named for his wife) has recalled for us 
the excitement created by the coach breaking 
down on the road as well as how the old General 
gave away one hundred and fifty silver half- 
dollars to his namesakes, saying to as many 
mothers: "This is our country's eagle. It 
will do for the little one to cut his teeth on now, 
but teach him to love and defend it." 

Young Rachel was the joy of the retired 
hero's heart during the few remaining years of 
his life, and one morning when she came to kiss 
him " good-bye " before starting for school he 
threw around her neck a chain of fine workman- 
ship. To this was hung a miniature of the one 
who had been his beloved companion for thirty- 
seven years and which he had worn hidden in 
his bosom ever since their parting. 

" Wear it, Rachel, for my sake," he said. 

Less than a week after he passed away, with 
1 06 



Indian Lincoyer 



his last gaze on the face of this dear grand- 
daughter. He had joined the wife of his youth 
beyond the stars, and Andrew Jackson, Jr., was 
master of the Hermitage. 



107 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE VAN BUREN BOYS 

WHILE the incidents of the last chapter 
were making history in the South, 
and when away back at the close of 
the eighteenth century " Old Hickory," as the 
Waxhaw youngster, was winning his youthful 
spurs, two little Dutch folk were trudging to 
school together at Kinderhook on the Hudson. 

One was young Martin Van Buren, the son 
of " mine host," of the village tavern, and the 
other little Hannah Hoes, who admired, with 
all her girlish heart, the head scholar of the 
Academy, the clever boy, who began the study 
of law at fourteen, and who actually argued a 
case against his preceptor, Sylvester, and won it, 
too, before he was sixteen. 

This seemed the more wonderful because he 
was so small, the justice made him stand upon 
a bench, with the exhortation : " There, Mat, 
beat your master! " 

Elated by this success, Martin, then, fared 
108 



The Van Buren Boys 



him off to New York to continue his studies 
and there fell under the flattering influence of 
the fascinating politician, Aaron Burr, when he 
was at the zenith of his popularity. His fancy, 
however, never wavered from the sweetheart of 
his boyhood and he returned to Kinderhook and 
to Hannah. 

They were married and set up housekeeping 
in a modest manner; a quartette of rolly-poly ba- 
bies coming to make the little home bright and 
cheery; though one was only vouchsafed them 
for a few weeks. 

Twelve years, too, were all they passed to- 
gether, for shortly after their removal to Al- 
bany — where Mr. Van Buren's profession as 
well as his duties in the State Senate called him 
— the gentle wife was summoned to join the 
great majority. 

A victim of consumption, her illness was a 
long one, while she was so nervous that small 
Abraham, John and the baby could only see her 
on those days when she was most comfortable, 
being just taken in to kiss her and then told to 
" run away." 

It has, however, been recorded by her niece, 
a girl of sixteen at the time, that — 

" When told by her physicians that she could 
live, in all probability, but a few days longer, 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

she called her children to her and gave them her 
dying counsel and blessing, and with the utmost 
composure bade them farewell and committed 
them to the care of the Saviour she loved and in 
whom she trusted." 

The baby could not have long survived his 
mother, but in the course of a few years we 
hear of Abraham at the Military Academy at 
West Point. Here, like others, he started in, 
in the " Awkward Squad," and worked and 
drilled through his cadet course, after which he 
was sent to subdue the red men of the plains, 
only resigning when his father desired his serv- 
ices as Secretary at the White House. 

John, on the contrary, followed in the foot- 
steps of his clever parent, taking his degree at 
Yale, studying law with the late Benjamin F. 
Butler, and being admitted to the bar. 

He was an elegant young man, tall and hand- 
some, with such delightful, courtly manners 
that he was popularly known as " Prince 
John." He was an attache of the legation dur- 
ing Mr. Van Buren's short sojourn in England 
— for the official career of the Kinderhook law- 
yer is the most remarkable on record, he being 
United States Senator, Governor of New York, 
Secretary of State, Minister to the Court of 
St. James and Vice-President, all within the 
I 10 



The Van Buren Boys 



short period of six years. Then, to crown all, 
the chief honor within the nation's gift was 
thrust upon him. 

Probably Martin Van Buren never missed 
his lost wife more than when he succeeded Gen- 
eral Jackson, and the White House had to be 
thrown open without a mistress to add graceful 
womanly touches to its bare walls. Neverthe- 
less, this " bachelor's hall " always presented 
an appearance of unostentatious elegance and 
its duties were administered with, elevated 
grace. Even Henry Clay, Van Buren's bitter 
enemy, wrote of him : 

" I have always found him in his manner 
and deportment, civil, courteous and gentle- 
manly; and he dispenses in the noble mansion 
which he now occupies, one worthy the residence 
of the chief magistrate of a great people, a gen- 
erous and liberal hospitality. An acquaintance 
with him of more than twenty years' duration 
has inspired me with a respect for the man, al- 
though I regret to be compelled to say, I detest 
the magistrate." 

Abraham, who now wore the epaulettes of a 
major, was his right-hand man and did his best 
to make the public receptions pleasant affairs; 
while to one of these there came one day, with 
Mistress Dolly Madison, such a graceful, 
in 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

vivacious girl that the President was quite capti- 
vated with her. 

A South Carolinian was pretty Angelica 
Singleton, and little more than a schoolgirl, 
having lately left the seminary of Madam Gre- 
laud, in Philadelphia, where she had passed 
several years. ' She, therefore, enjoyed her first 
taste of Washington society, with all the zest 
of a " bud," and her sparkling, dark eyes soon 
drew the gallant young officer to her side, while, 
one New Year's Day, delighted Martin Van 
Buren proudly presented his new daughter-in- 
law as the Lady of the White House. 

The following spring, the young couple took 
a wedding trip to Europe, where they visited 
the bride's uncle, Mr. Stevenson, then Minister 
to England, and were most cordially received in 
France by Louis Philippe and his queen. 

When dining at St. Cloud ceremony was cast 
aside, and the king himself conducted them 
through the palace, and wished to show them 
his grandson, the Comte De Paris. But, on 
knocking at the door of the royal nursery, they 
met with no response. 

On returning to the drawing-room, Mrs. 
Van Buren told this to the queen, who, laugh- 
ingly said: "Ah, that is all the king knows 
about it! After his mother left with the Due 
112 



The Van Buren Boys 



D'Orleans for Algiers, I caused the child to 
be removed to a chamber near my own." She 
then proposed sending for him and for her 
Wurtemberg grandchild as well, but, unfortu- 
nately, both little princes were fast asleep. 

The bride and groom returned to America in 
the fall, and, gaily enough, the administra- 
tion of our eighth President drew to a close. 
He only served one term and is said to have 
saved half his salary. Therefore, on return- 
ing to private life he was spared those pecuniary 
troubles which distressed the old age of so many 
of his predecessors. 

He purchased, near the home of his boy- 
hood, an old estate where Washington Irving 
dwelt for a time and where he put the finishing 
touches to his "Knickerbocker"; and naming 
it " Lindenwald," settled down there into a 
highly respected private citizen. 

By this time, " Prince John " was winning 
his laurels with his eloquent tongue, and, ere 
long, became conspicuous as a chief among the 
" Barnburners," a name given to Northern men 
with Southern principles. 

Often, too, on the streets of New York, 
might be seen an old and a young man walk- 
ing, arm in arm. The one short, white-haired, 
but extremely erect; and the other tall and 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

striking in appearance, with a resolute, rather 
aggressive bearing and with his hair parted in 
the middle, in a fashion then novel on this side 
of the Atlantic. Passersby often turned to 
look at them and were wont to whisper: 
" There goes ex-President Van Buren and his 
younger son, ' Prince John.' " 

The latter's health was not over strong and 
he and his father, also, made a long and satis- 
factory tour through Europe. He recuperated, 
but eventually died at sea. 

For some years, the mistress of the old Dutch 
homestead of " Lindenwald " was Angelica 
Van Buren, who there kept house for her fa- 
ther-in-law and husband, and there a bevy of 
grandsons was the joy of the ex-President, ere 
his life peacefully ebbed away, beside the noble 
stream discovered by Hendrick Hudson. Af- 
terward, she took her children abroad to be 
educated, and, in later life, was accounted a so- 
ciety leader in New York, as well as the mother 
of a promising second generation of " Van 
Buren boys." 



114 



CHAPTER IX 

" TIPPECANOE " AND HIS FAMILY, TOO 

" For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, 
And with them we'll beat little Van." 

THIS was a popular election song of the 
Whigs, which rang out uproariously all 
over the land in 1 840, during what was 
termed the " Log Cabin and Hard Cider Cam- 
paign." 

They did beat little Van Buren sure enough, 
and nowhere was the victory more enthusias- 
tically celebrated than round North Bend, in 
Ohio, where General William Henry Harrison 
and his good wife had come amongst the earli- 
est pioneers. Here, too, their ten boys and 
girls had been born, and here, alas ! one died in 
infancy and seven in the first blush of young 
manhood and womanhood. 

Some old inhabitants, indeed, could recall the 

time when the gallant captain, poor and then 

unknown to fame, came a-wooing pretty, pious 

Anna Symmes, the daughter of the proprietor 

ii5 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

of the " Great Miami Purchase," and, being 
opposed by her wealthy father, wedded her on 
the sly, one day when the Judge was away from 
home, and would laughingly relate how the irate 
parent returned and exclaimed: "Well, sir, I 
understand you have married Anna ! " 

" Yes, sir," responded Captain Harrison can- 
didly. 

" But how do you expect to support her? " 
" By my sword and my own right arm." 
Which answer so delighted Judge Symmes 
that he relented and gave the young couple his 
blessing on the spot; while he lived to be rarely 
proud of his son-in-law, the hero of Fort Meigs, 
of the Thames, and, above all, of Tippecanoe, 
— that fierce battle against the Indian Chief 
Tecumseh and his prophet brother. 

The son of a signer of the Declaration of 
Independence and a college graduate, the Cap- 
tain thought as much of education as of 
warfare, and, as schools were " few and far be- 
tween " in that thinly-settled country, he em- 
ployed a tutor for his flock of little ones, fitted 
up a cabin on his farm, as a schoolhouse, and 
invited the boys and girls of his neighbors to 
share his children's advantages. 

This instruction was mingled with much of 
the healthy fun of farm life, while from their 
116 



" Tippecanoe " and His Family, Too 

mother the young Harrisons imbibed strong re- 
ligious principles, for Anna Symmes had been 
brought up in an almost puritanical manner by 
her grandmother and was wont to say, " from 
her earliest childhood, the frivolous amuse- 
ments of youth had no charm for her. If ever 
constrained to attend places of fashionable 
amusement, it was to gratify others and not her- 
self." 

Very sweet, but sadly subdued by the loss 
of so many children, as well as ten grandchil- 
dren, her influence over her family was strong 
and abiding and her last surviving son once 
wrote: " That I am a firm believer in the re- 
ligion of Christ is not a virtue of mine. I im- 
bibed it at my mother's breast and can no more 
divest myself of it than I can of my nature." 

This was John Scott Harrison, who was but 
a wee laddie of seven when the Miami tribe of 
Indians made its descent upon the white settle- 
ment, led by the " Crouching Panther" (Te- 
cumseh) . 

But he was a man grown when his father de- 
feated Martin Van Buren, lived on a neighbor- 
ing farm with his second wife and had a small 
seven-year-old of his own — little Benjamin, 
destined in time to reach the same high pinnacle 
as his grandfather, beneath whose humble roof 
117 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

at North Bend he first saw the light. He was 
not lucky enough to witness the old General's 
inauguration, but two other young grandsons 
did. They were the fatherless children of 
President Harrison's namesake son, and they 
accompanied their widowed mother to Wash- 
ington, she — Mrs. Jane F. Harrison — being 
the mistress of the White House during the 
one brief month when her father-in-law held 
the reins of government. 

It must have passed like a dream to the boys 
in the big mansion, and then pneumonia ruth- 
lessly cut short the valiant career of the heroic 
soldier and he passed away with this parting 
injunction to Mr. Tyler — the Vice-President, 
— on his lips : " Sir, I wish you to under- 
stand the principles of government. I wish 
them carried out. I ask nothing more." 

For some years, his widow remained on the 
old farm, but her last days were spent in the 
home of her son, now Hon. J. Scott Harrison, 
where she received almost idolatrous attentions 
from her granddaughters. 

Many of her grandsons were officers and sol- 
diers in the Union Army during the Civil War, 
and one, when bidding her " good-bye," ex- 
pressed most affectionate regret at leaving her 
on a bed of sickness. 

118 



" Tippecanoe" and His Family, Too 

" O no, my son," she said, " your country 
needs your services; I do not. Go and dis- 
charge your duty faithfully and fearlessly. I 
feel that my prayers in your behalf will be 
heard and that you will be returned in safety. 
\nd yet, perhaps, I do not feel as much con- 
cerned for you as I should. I have parted so 
often with your grandfather under similar cir- 
cumstances, and he was always returned to me 
in safety, that I feel it will be the same with 

ji 

you. . 

The young Captain did come back, crowned 
with honors; and the beloved grandmother, re- 
taining all her intellectual powers, lived to be 
nearly ninety, an agreeable companion for both 
old and young. 



119 



CHAPTER X 

AN OCTAVE OF F. F. V.'s 

THERE was no lack of " olive 
branches " around the hospitable 
board of John Tyler of Greenway, 
and veritable F. F. V's were they, belonging to 
the State which has aptly been termed, " The 
Mother of Presidents." 

Both their father and grandfather had occu- 
pied the Governor's chair of Virginia, while the 
gentle mother, whose maiden name was Letitia 
Christian, came from a race of whom it was 
said the sons were all " distinguished for their 
personal courage, intelligence and graceful ap- 
pearance and manners; and the daughters for 
their beauty, piety and domestic virtues." 

Mary, the first born of the seven, appears 
to have been her father's darling, and to her — 
when away in Congress — he wrote most long 
and amusing letters about the current events of 
the day, as well as pages of good advice regard- 
ing her studies, reading and deportment. Al- 
120 



An Octave of F. F. V.'s 

ways, too, was he on the lookout for something 
that would please her, as a book, a comb for 
her hair or a new piano. 

" My children are my principal treasures," 
he says in one of these epistles, " and my un- 
ceasing prayer is, that you may all so conduct 
yourselves as to merit the esteem of the good. 
In that way you will crown my declining years 
with blessings and multiply my joys upon earth. 
I am sure that you, my dear daughter, will ful- 
fill my anticipations and be a blessing to your 
parents." 

It was, then, a great trial to Mr. Tyler when 
the first break occurred in the family circle, and 
this " dear daughter " in early girlhood, gave 
her hand and heart to Henry Lightfoot Jones, 
and went to live some distance from the old 
homestead; and he writes thus pathetically: 

" What am I to do without you, on my re- 
turn home, should you have left before that 
takes place? I need not say that I shall miss 
you daily and hourly. I scarcely know how I 
ever prevailed on myself to part with you at all, 
but I hope the change may contribute to your 
happiness." 

Next to Mary, came two boys, Robert and 
John, who were devoted admirers of their 
kindly affectionate father. We can imagine 
121 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

how they loved to hearken to reminiscences of 
his prankish youth, and especially how he was 
ringleader in a rebellion against a certain tyran- 
nical teacher, more given to the birch rod than 
to moral suasion ; how the pupils bound him 
hand and foot and left him locked in the school- 
house, until discovered by a passer-by; and how 
their grandfather, Judge Tyler, when com- 
plained to by the infuriated master, only quoted 
majestically, " Sic semper tyrannis! " 

These lads completed their education at the 
college of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, 
and it was Mr. Tyler's fondest wish that he and 
his two sons might practise law together. 

Robert married a daughter of the tragedian, 
Thomas Apthorpe Cooper, and his bright 
young wife, Priscilla, took quite an active part 
at the White House during the Tyler regime. 

Following these, came three little maids, Le- 
titia, Elizabeth and Alice, and to this trio, the 
loving parent, also, indited most affectionate 
epistles. 

" Misses Letty and Lizzie," he once wrote, 
" if you do not learn your books and be obedient 
and good girls, I shall not love you. You, 
Miss Letty, do what is right and Lizzie will 
follow your example; but if she is a bad girl, 
don't do, Miss Lizzie, as she does, but do what 



An Octave of F. F. V.'s 



is right and becoming. Father thinks mighty 
often of little Alice, and hopes that she does 
not cry much now." 

This last small daughter is also spoken of in 
the home correspondence as " the fattest thing, 
and the sweetest and the worst you ever saw," 
and she was but a child of twelve when Gen- 
eral Harrison's sudden death made her father 
President, while the baby, Tazewell, was still 
younger. 

By this time, however, Letty was married, as 
well as Mary, and it was as young Mrs. Sem- 
ple that she accompanied her invalid mother to 
Washington and joined the family in the White 
House. Here, the customary mode of life at 
Greenway was kept up as much as possible, 
while the morning after their arrival, their fa- 
ther said at the breakfast table, " Now, my 
children, during the next few years we are to 
occupy the home of the President of the United 
States. I hope you will conduct yourselves 
with even more than your usual propriety and 
decorum. Remember you will be much in the 
public eye. You are to know no favorites. 
Your visitors will be citizens of the United 
States, and as such are all to be received with 
equal courtesy. You will not receive any gifts 
whatever and allow no one to approach you on 
123 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

the subject of office or favors. These words 
you will kindly remember, my children, and let 
it not be incumbent on me to speak them again." 

Hospitality was now dispensed by two din- 
ner parties each week and an occasional ball, 
but only once a year were the women permitted 
at table in the State dining-room, and that on 
the occasion of the President's annual dinner to 
his Cabinet. At this period, too, was started 
the idea of having music in the grounds of the 
mansion on mild Saturday afternoons. 

The beauty of the family was, undoubtedly, 
Elizabeth, a charming young girl with fine eyes, 
an exquisite complexion and soft hair curling in 
her neck. She, too, was a White House bride, 
having a pretty little winter wedding in the big 
East Room. Mrs. Robert Tyler thus described 
her on the occasion to a friend in Pennsylvania : 

" Lizzie looked surpassingly lovely in her 
wedding dress and long, blonde, lace veil, her 
face literally covered with blushes and dimples. 
She behaved remarkably well, too. Any quan- 
tity of compliments were paid to her. I heard 
one of her bridesmaids express to Mr. Webster 
her surprise at Lizzie consenting to give up her 
belleship, with all the delights of Washington 
society and the advantages of her position, and 
124 



An Octave of F, F. V.'s 

retire to a quiet Virginia home. 'Ah, me ! ' 
said he, 

"Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, 
And love is heaven, and heaven is love.' " 

It is rather interesting, too, to note that a 
son of this White House union, William Waller, 
when the Civil War broke out, resigned from 
West Point and wedded a young sister-in-law 
of President Davis in the executive mansion of 
the Confederate States at Richmond. 

John, another son, though a mere lad, also 
joined the Southern army, and was slain in 
battle, " fighting," as he said, " for his mother's 
grave." 

But the four years in the White House were 
eventful ones to the Tylers in other ways. 
There a son was born to Mary and a daughter 
to Robert, and there the gentle, beloved mother 
— who had long been in delicate health — 
breathed her last, passing away with her favor- 
ite flower, a damask rose, clasped in her fragile 
hand. 

This was a sad loss, indeed, and Mr. Tyler 
turned to his second daughter, Mrs. Semple, to 
assist him with the social duties of his high of- 
fice. These she discharged with grace and 
125 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

tact; and, in her father's leisure moments, was 
his devoted companion, sharing his afternoon 
drives and, when he was weary, lulling him to 
sleep with his favorite song, an old-fashioned 
one called " Rome." Never did she dream 
that she would ever be called upon to resign her 
place to another. 

At that very time, however, another mother- 
less girl had lately left the renowned Chegary 
Institute, in New York, and was traveling in 
Europe, acquiring all the polish which foreign 
culture could bestow. 

A most accomplished and attractive young 
lady was Julia Gardiner, and on her return to 
her native land she accompanied her father on 
a visit to Washington. There they, as well as 
the President, were on board the Princeton on 
the occasion of that ill-fated pleasure excursion, 
when the great gun, " The Peacemaker," sud- 
denly burst, carrying desolation to so many 
hearts. 

Among those killed was Mr. Gardiner, and 
Mr. Tyler doubtless cared for the dazed and 
bereaved orphan, as well as for the victims, all 
of whom were buried from the Nation's home- 
stead. 

" Pity," it is said, " is akin to love," and so 
it must have proved, for the following summer 
126 



An Octave of F. F. V.'s 



the President took a trip to New York, and 
when he came back, he brought Miss Julia as 
a stepmother for little Alice and Tazewell. 

A pretty girl of fifteen was the youngest 
daughter at this time and a high-spirited little 
puss as well, as was shown one Sunday after- 
noon when, accompanied by Tazewell, she went 
to service at old St. John's. The President's 
pew was only reserved until a certain hour, so, 
being late, the youngsters found it occupied by 
two theological students from the Seminary at 
Alexandria. At their entrance, however, the 
young men at once stepped out and courteously 
held open the pew door for them to enter. 
With a toss of her saucy head, then, Miss Alice, 
pushing her brother before her, went in and 
quickly slammed to the door, leaving the dis- 
comfited youths standing in the aisle outside, 
covered with blushes and confusion. 

They were forced to seek seats elsewhere, 
but in spite of this rebuff, one of the stu- 
dents could not help admiring the piquant 
face of the rude little lady and soon after 
called on the President, with the request that 
he might make her acquaintance. This was 
permitted and when the family had retired to 
private life at Williamsburg, Va., the infatu- 
ated young clergyman obtained the rector- 
127 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

ship of the church there and finally married 
bonny Alice Tyler. It is their daughter who 
has given me this account of her parents' first 
meeting in old St. John's. 

Quite different, I fancy, was Alice's young- 
est and favorite brother, Tazewell, for it is thus 
his child, Miss Martha T. Tyler of San Fran- 
cisco, has described him to me. " He was a 
sensitive boy of an imaginative, poetic temper- 
ament, marked at times, nevertheless, by a 
somewhat paradoxical sense of humor. He 
lived in an era when children were supposed 
to be seldom seen and never heard, and except 
for a young sister, Alice, to whom he was sin- 
gularly devoted, I think his life in Washing- 
ton must have been a lonely one for a child. 
. . . His mother died when he was about 
twelve years of age. After a little they put 
him to school at Georgetown, and I can picture 
his return at vacation time to the little sister, 
always through her brief life — she died young 
— so closely in sympathy with him." 

Still we hear of grand races in the long East 
Room, of merry romps with a little neighbor 
in the garden, and of a fine fancy ball for chil- 
dren, which was given at the White House dur- 
ing this administration. 

The eight months after the President's sec- 
128 



An Octave of F. F. V.'s 



ond marriage were particularly festive, while 
the clever young bride first introduced the eti- 
quette of Windsor Castle by having the names 
of guests announced at the door. She closed 
her short reign by an elaborate entertainment 
on the evening of Washington's Birthday, 
1845, an d later passed most of her life on a 
fine estate, which Mr. Tyler purchased on the 
James River. 

A charming home was Sherwood Forest, and 
Mistress Julia found her chief pleasure in car- 
ing for and training her little son, Gardiner, the 
child of the ex-President's old age, who com- 
pleted the Tyler octave. He was, I believe, 
once the president of " William and Mary Col- 
lege," and is still well known as Judge Tyler 
of Virginia. 

Last year, however, there passed away in 
Washington, the latest survivor of all John Ty- 
ler's happy boys and girls who dwelt with him 
in the Executive Mansion. An aged lady of 
nearly ninety and totally blind, she had long 
resided at the Louise Home — that charming 
abiding-place, given by Mr. W. W. Corcoran, 
in memory of his daughter, for Southern gentle- 
women of refined birth and culture. 

Impoverished by the Civil War, she for some 
years conducted a successful school for young 
129 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

ladies in Baltimore, but as her powers failed 
found a pleasant rest after her labors in this 
lovely spot, in fulfillment of a promise once 
made to its founder. Never, though, could she 
be induced to enter the official residence, and 
proudly declared: " I have not been there 
since the Pierce administration." 

Her room was filled with mementos of her 
old home and kind friends kept it decked with 
flowers. Quaint, beautiful portraits of her 
mother and sisters beamed on her from the wall, 
and, ever and anon, her thoughts and conversa- 
tion would revert to the halcyon days when she 
was bright Letitia Tyler Semple, the daughter 
and mistress of the White House. 



30 



CHAPTER XI 

" MISS BETTY " TAYLOR 

WHEN Mr. Polk was President, the 
boys and girls of the White House 
were " conspicuous by their absence." 
Never a chick nor child awakened the echoes 
of the historic halls, and there was little to at- 
tract young people even to the receptions and 
social affairs, as Mrs. Polk tabooed dancing and 
even did away with the serving of refreshments. 
In spite of this, however, that dignified lady 
was quite a popular hostess, and has ever been 
remembered with deep respect and admiration. 
Still, we cannot help fancying that a certain 
youthful and frivolous set in Washington re- 
joiced over the election of General Zachary 
Taylor, not only because he was just then the 
idol of the nation on account of victories won 
in the Mexican war, but because he had a 
blithe, young daughter of nineteen — and a 
bride at that — to give a touch of girlish grace 
to the presidential dwelling-place. 
131 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

" For more than a quarter of a century my 
house has been the tent and my home the bat- 
tlefield," once remarked bluff " Old Rough and 
Ready," as his soldiers fondly nicknamed him; 
and as his wife (who had been a Miss Mar- 
garet Smith of Kentucky) followed him with- 
ersoever he went, to the rude western frontier, 
infested by Indians, or to the fever-haunted 
everglades of Florida, their three children — 
Sarah, Richard and Elizabeth — knew naught 
of home-life and enjoyed very little of their 
parents' society and care, being left with friends 
in settlements or placed at boarding-schools. 
Far from her mother's wing, then, in a Phila- 
delphia seminary, Elizabeth — or Betty as she 
was generally called — developed into the 
bright, happy-hearted maiden of pleasant mem- 
ory, while bookish little Dick was at the age of 
thirteen, dispatched across the sea to Scotland. 
There he spent three satisfactory, industrious 
years, becoming acquainted with the classics in 
good old " Edinboro' town," followed them up 
by a twelvemonth in France, and was then well 
fitted to return and enter the Junior Class at 
Yale, from which university he was graduated 
two years later. 

But, for all Richard's studious ways, the love 
of warfare was born in his blood and bred in 
132 



Miss Betty" Taylor 



his bone. Scarcely, then, had he left college 
before he was off to join his father's camp on 
the Rio Grande, and take his part in the con- 
flict with our Mexican neighbors, being present 
at the glorious triumphs of Palo Alto and 
Resaca de la Palma, where the General, " who 
never knew when he was beaten," won his 
proudest laurels. 

Probably this was highly pleasing to fighting 
Zach, who loved gunpowder as he did his break- 
fast bacon, and would ride into action as though 
going to a fair, wearing a broad-brimmed straw 
hat and a linen duster. He advanced his boy 
all he could, but he set his face strongly against 
his girls marrying into the army, and frowned 
a grim refusal when a young lieutenant, named 
Jefferson Davis, came a-wooing his elder daugh- 
ter, saying that " a soldier never had a home." 
Love, however, laughs at all objections and, ere 
long, Miss Sarah and her dauntless officer lover 
had eloped together, word of the runaway 
marriage being brought back to the irate father. 
He was exceedingly wroth and declared that 
" no honorable man would thus defy the wishes 
of parents, and no truly affectionate daughter 
be so regardless of duty." 

Indeed, he never saw his first-born child 
again, as she died very suddenly only a few 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

months later; nor was he reconciled to Mr. 
Davis — the man destined in after-time to be 
the head of the Confederate States — until they 
met, some years later, in quite a romantic man- 
ner on the battlefield, after the victory at Buena 
Vista, when the feelings of both overcame 
them, and, falling into each other's arms, they 
mingled their tears together. 

Little Miss Betty was now the only one left 
to be the comfort of her parents' hearts and the 
light of the humble home which the Taylors at 
length made for themselves, out of a tumble- 
down cottage on the river bank at Baton Rouge. 
There mother and daughter lived during the 
wearing suspense which followed every battle of 
the distant war in Mexico, and thither the Gen- 
eral retired when the conflict was over. 

But not long were they allowed to enjoy a 
period of domestic peace. The eyes of the 
whole country were, ere long, turned upon old 
Rough and Ready as the rising star, the Baton 
Rouge cottage became a Mecca for tourists, 
while Miss Betty sought Bliss with a worthy 
young major of that name; by which we may 
conclude that the General had overcome his dis- 
taste for military sons-in-law. 

The nomination and election of her husband 
was anything but a gratification to Mrs. Taylor. 
134 



Miss Betty" Iaylor 



She dreaded public life and declared: " It was 
a plot to deprive her of his society, and shorten 
his life by unnecessary care and responsibility." 
Strangely prophetic words these proved, which 
later she remembered with profound sorrow and 
bitterness. Very rarely, too, did she appear 
at any social function at Washington, leaving 
everything to Elizabeth, who was the real mis- 
tress as well as daughter of the White House. 

Before long the pleasant-faced girl, still in 
her teens, had won a host of friends by her 
genial affability, and even learned to lead the 
conversation at public receptions, her remarks 
always being distinguished for good sense and 
a whimsical humor, while her influence began 
at last to be felt in political circles as well as 
social. 

Indeed, young Mrs. Bliss is said to have 
done " the honors of the establishment with 
the artlessness of a rustic belle and the grace 
of a duchess." Her married name, however, 
was completely ignored. She was " Miss 
Betty Taylor " to old and young, and as " Miss 
Betty " will ever be handed down in White 
House annals. 

It is to be regretted that her gentle sway 
was of such short duration. Only a year and 
a half, and then dawned that fatal Fourth of 
135 



Boys and Girls of the White House ' 

July which was a gala day for the capital, 
crowds gathering from far and near to witness 
the laying of the corner stone of the Washing- 
ton National Monument. 

Of course the President and his fair daugh- 
ter were present, to listen to the oration deliv- 
ered by General Foote; to see the bag of sand 
from Kosciusko's tomb and other mementos 
deposited beneath the great block, and, also, to 
hear the address of one who had once been a 
boy in a Presidential family — that of George 
Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of 
the Father of his Country. 

The weather was extremely hot, the sun beat- 
ing down with great intensity. President Tay- 
lor was quite affected by it and drank freely of 
ice water. On returning home, too, he ate 
heartily of cherries, washing them down with 
iced milk. An hour after he was taken vio- 
lently ill and five days later the brave old war- 
rior was no more, his last words being: " I 
have endeavored to do my duty." 

He lay in state in the famous East Room on 
a magnificent catafalco of black velvet trimmed 
with white lace; there was a grand military 
funeral conspicuous in the procession of which 
appeared " Old Whitey," the General's trusty 
war horse, with all his trappings on, following 

136 



"Miss Betty" Taylor 



his master to the grave; and then, Miss Betty 
accompanied her bereaved mother, with a very 
sad heart, back into private life. Their sad- 
ness was shared, too, by her brother Richard, 
who, ere this, had been forced by ill health to 
leave the army and was raising cotton on a 
Southern plantation. 

As misfortunes, also, seldom come singly, the 
death of President Taylor was soon after fol- 
lowed by that of Major Bliss; and in later 
years his widow was known as Mrs. Dandridge 
of Winchester, Va. 



137 



G 



CHAPTER XII 

CLEVER MARY FILLMORE 

*£ ^""""*>| RADLE him in a sap-trough, sir! 
Cradle him in a sap-trough! " 
That was the advice given by 
good old Farmer Fillmore to one who ques- 
tioned him as to the best manner in which to 
bring up a boy. 

In truth, then, his son Millard was not only 
cradled in a sap-trough, but at an early age in- 
ured to many of the hardships of life. Hence, 
he was a " self-made man," in the most popular 
sense of the word. 

It was probably from his mother that Mil- 
lard Fillmore inherited his fondness for books, 
although there was very little to foster that 
taste in the plain farmhouse where the library 
consisted of the Bible and a hymn book; and 
his conscientiousness from his worthy father, 
who was wont to say that his creed was the 
shortest one in Christendom, and was " Do 
right." 

133 



Clever Mary Fillmore 



It was reading, however, which proved 
the country lad's " open sesame " to success, as 
soon as an opportunity offered. Reading it 
was which transformed the poor clothier's ap- 
prentice into a lawyer and set his feet on the 
first rung of the ladder that was ultimately to 
lead to the White House, though doubtless 
it was assisted by a certain " sweet courtesy of 
manner " which won for him a host of friends. 

There was no pleasanter home in all Buffalo 
than that to which Mr. Fillmore carried his 
wife and baby boy in 1829, and there, three 
years later, a little girl was added to the small 
family. 

Named for both father and mother was 
Master Millard Powers, while the wee daugh- 
ter was christened Mary Abigail, and soon 
showed herself such a bright, precocious child 
that her parents were anxious to give her every 
advantage in their power. 

The excellent public schools of the little lake 
city afforded a fine foundation for a superior ed- 
ucation, but were supplemented by private les- 
sons in the higher branches, modern languages, 
music, drawing and painting, while she was 
" finished " by a year at Mrs. Sedgwick's select 
seminary at Lenox, Mass. 

From the Berkshire Hills, then, Mary re- 
139 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

turned home a remarkably accomplished young 
woman, who could chatter in French like a 
Parisienne, was conversant with German and 
Spanish, a superb musician and with quite a 
taste for sculpture. 

This last she was encouraged in by a much 
beloved schoolmate, who delighted to dabble in 
clay, a girl who afterward made a name for 
herself in her chosen profession — the cele- 
brated Harriet Hosmer. 

How rarely proud Mr. and Mrs. Fillmore 
were of this clever daughter ! But still the girl's 
active mind was not satisfied and, although her 
father was now Vice-President, she determined 
to enter the State Normal School and qualify 
for a teacher. This she did, being graduated 
in six months and teaching three, as was re- 
quired. But she had scarcely completed her 
course before General Taylor's sudden demise 
put Mr. Fillmore at the head of the nation, and 
she was whisked off to Washington to try her 
wings in an entirely new sphere. 

Luckily American girls are extremely adapta- 
ble, and Mary soon found as much pleasure in 
society, in public functions and in long, delight- 
ful drives through the beautiful country around 
the capital, as she had in higher mathematics 
and the regular routine of college life. 
140 



Clever Mary Fillmore 



Young Millard — now a newly-fledged law- 
yer — was also with them, having resigned his 
profession for the nonce, to undertake the duties 
of private secretary, as so many sons of Presi- 
dents have done. 

These brainy folk, however, were aghast at 
the utter dearth of books in the White House. 
It made the historic mansion seem to them like 
a body without a soul, and Mr. Fillmore peti- 
tioned Congress for an appropriation to remedy 
the need. 

This was granted, and he himself selected 
the library and had it arranged in a large, 
cheerful room on the second floor. That, then, 
became the favorite apartment of the whole 
house. 

There Mrs. Fillmore, who was in mourning 
and disinclined to general society, gathered 
her little home comforts around her; there the 
daughter had her piano, harp and guitar; there 
they received the informal visits of personal 
friends, and there the most delightful little 
musicales were given, with a few chosen spirits 
to assist and appreciate. 

There was an abundance of affectionate, 

domestic life behind the public one, and Mary 

was the center of both; for though not a pretty 

girl, she was extremely vivacious, with a keen 

141 



Boys and Girls of the Whit e House 

sense of the ridiculous, and bubbling over with 
wit and fun. People, too, were always at- 
tracted by the goodness, as well as intellect, 
shining in her straightforward, open counte- 
nance. 

Most peacefully, then, the thirteenth admin- 
istration waxed and waned, although the mut- 
terings from the approaching war cloud were 
already beginning to be heard. 

It closed at last, but Mrs. Fillmore only left 
the White House to enter the " mansion not 
made by hands," and Mary returned to Buffalo 
to do her best to fill the place of one of whom 
her husband said: "For twenty-seven years, 
my entire married life, I was always greeted 
with a happy smile." 

Bravely she took up the loving task and her 
painting and sculpture as well, while she bade 
fair to rival her friend, Miss Hosmer, in the 
field of art. For being only twenty-one she 
looked forward to a long and useful future. 
But it was not to be. 

Her grandparents lived seventeen miles dis- 
tant at Aurora and thither Mary went one hot 
July day to pay them a little visit. She arrived 
in the best of spirits and, apparently, in robust 
health; but, that very night, she was attacked 
by cholera, then making one of its dread 



Clever Mary Fillmore 



marches through the land. Hastily, her father 
and brother were summoned to her side, but 
she knew them not and passed away in the very 
flower of her promising young womanhood. A 
host of sorrowing friends followed this cleverest 
of all our White House girls to her last green 
resting-place at Forest Lawn, echoing the words 
of one of her obituaries: 

" Blessing She Was, God Made Her So." 

So the home of the two Millard Fillmores 
was left as lonely and desolate as seemed the 
great house at Washington to those who were 
its occupants at this very time. 

For, in the White House now dwelt another 
childless couple, though unlike the Polks, 
Franklin and Jane Pierce could remember three 
sunny heads and three bonny boyish faces which 
they had once called their own. Two died 
when little more than babes, but the third — a 
promising lad of thirteen — was instantly killed 
in a railroad accident on the Boston & Maine 
Railroad, only two months before his father's 
inauguration, the life of the President-elect be- 
ing endangered at the same time. 

Franklin Pierce's term of office was called 
the " beauty administration," from the many 
beautiful women who came prominently before 
143 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

the public at this time; but in the official resi- 
dence itself dwelt a very delicate and sorrowful 
lady, still suffering from the same accident 
which robbed her of her last son and to both 
her and the President the vast rooms were ever 
haunted by wraith-like memories of the children 
they had " loved long since and lost awhile." 



144 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE BONNY LASS OF LANCASTER 

ABOUT none of our Presidents has such 
a halo of romance hung as that which 
surrounded James Buchanan, the fif- 
teenth leader of the nation. Losing by death, 
while still in early manhood, the one and only 
love of his life, the chapter of sentiment was 
closed to him forever and made him a confirmed 
bachelor, sedate and grave before his time. 

His attitude toward all women was that of 
chivalric courtesy, but his chief affections seem 
to have been lavished upon the child of a favor- 
ite sister, who was, at first, rather a torment and 
burden, but, as years developed her into a 
maiden of rare beauty and intelligence, became 
like a daughter in his home, as well as his dear 
companion, confidante and friend. 

When the four little Lanes of Mercersburg, 
Penn., were left orphans at an early age, Har- 
riet, the youngest of the quartette, and a bright 
golden-haired lassie of nine, unhesitatingly 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

elected to live with her uncle, James Buchanan, 
rather than with any other relative. 

This was a bit staggering to the dignified 
gentleman, who was immersed in politics and 
not particularly fond of children, but, feeling 
flattered by her preference, finally brought his 
young niece to the house in Lancaster, where he 
kept " bachelor's hall," presided over by a trust- 
worthy spinster always known as " Miss 
Hetty," and who was his housekeeper for forty 
years. Here she had, too, for company a lively 
boy cousin, James Buchanan Henry, who, like 
herself, was fatherless and motherless, and had 
also found a domicile beneath the good lawyer's 
roof. 

A recent writer has said: "She came into 
Buchanan's life like a breath of wind from the 
mountain-side, fresh, sweet, and wild. Bu- 
chanan was distraught. His bachelor habitat 
was in confusion. He was a man of theories and 
ideals. This bit of youthful life that had 
elected to invade the quiet of his days was a 
being of impulse, however generous, of exuber- 
ant health and spirits." 

In fact, he found the harum-scarum little elf 

something of a problem, though, even then, she 

delighted him by her truthfulness. " She never 

told a lie," he once said of her in after-years; 

146 



The Bonny Lass of Lancaster 

" she had a soul above deceit or fraud. She 
was too proud for it." 

The first winter spent in Lancaster was not, 
however, a particularly pleasant one to young 
Harriet. Being summoned to Washington for 
the session of Congress, Mr. Buchanan closed 
his Pennsylvania home and moved his menage, 
including Miss Hetty Parker, to the capital; but 
he left his little ward behind, in the faithful but 
somewhat stern care of two elderly maiden 
ladies of very strict principles who were wont 
to discipline her by means of her healthy appe- 
tite and love of sweets. There were occasions 
when she was obliged to drink her tea without 
any sugar or go without her dessert for dinner; 
so it was with rapture she welcomed her uncle 
on his return; while for months she lived in 
dread of being again placed in the severe spin- 
sters' care. 

At the age of twelve, she was sent, with her 
sister Mary, to a boarding-school, at Charles- 
town, West Virginia, and, while there, her 
guardian felt it his duty to write to her every 
day. 

In one letter, after he became Secretary of 

State under President Polk, he wrote: "My 

labors are great, but they do not ' way ' me 

down, as you write the word. Now I would 

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Boys and Girls of the White House 

say ' weigh,' but doctors may differ on this 
point." Further on, too — " Your friends, 
often inquire for you. They have 
given you something of a name here, and Mrs. 
Polk and Miss Rucker, her niece, have several 
times urged me to permit you to come and pass 
some time with them. I have been as deaf as 
the adder to their request, knowing, to use a 
word of your grandmother's, that you are too 
4 outsetting ' already. There is a time for all 
things under the sun, as the wise man says, and 
your time will yet come." He was fearful lest 
the sweet bud of a girl, left in his charge, 
should blossom out into society too soon; so, 
during the three years when her education was 
being completed at the Visitation Convent in 
Georgetown, she was permitted but one Sun- 
day each month at her uncle's home on F Street, 
and he was highly pleased with her later, when, 
quite voluntarily, she decided to pass a winter 
quietly among her relatives in Pennsylvania. 
But every summer Mr. Buchanan took both his 
nieces to Bedford Springs and there, one sea- 
son, Miss Harriet, when still in her early teens, 
met a young Baltimorean fresh from college, 
who made a deep impression upon her, and one 
who was to play a prominent part in her life 
story, although not until long after. 
148 



The Bonny Lass of Lancaster 

About the time his niece left school the politi- 
cian purchased the fine estate of Wheatlands, 
just outside of Lancaster, and thither the family 
removed, taking possession of the spacious brick 
mansion set against a background of woodland 
and profusely shaded by oaks, elms and larches. 

Harriet Lane took a deep interest in the lay- 
ing out of the grounds, and here it was that she 
started in on an almost ideal young ladyhood; 
while her mind was broadened by being her 
uncle's constant companion, reading aloud and 
discussing with him the topics of the day. 
Myriads of distinguished visitors also found 
their way to Wheatlands, while there were fre- 
quent trips to Philadelphia, Pittsburg, New 
York, Washington and Virginia. 

Everywhere flocks of admirers followed in 
the young belle's train, but she remained won- 
derfully " fancy free," except for that one little 
episode at the Springs, and, ere long, Mr. Bu- 
chanan being appointed Minister to England, 
Miss Harriet joined him there, only to find the 
same marked attention she had received in her 
own land. Of course the republican maid was 
presented at court and acquitted herself " as to 
the manner bred," while all present were im- 
pressed by her power and grace, as well as her 
deep violet eyes, almost perfect mouth and 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

wealth of golden-brown hair arranged in the 
simplest style. 

The royal family, also, received the Ameri- 
can minister and his fair niece in the social, in- 
formal way which is so much more flattering 
than at a big public function. She writes, in 
one of her letters home: 

" We have dined with the queen. Her in- 
vitations are always short, and, as the court is 
in mourning and as I had no black dress, one 
day's notice kept me very busy. The queen 
was most gracious, and talked a great deal to 
me. Uncle sat upon her right hand, and Prince 
Albert was talkative, and altogether we passed 
a charming evening. The Princess Royal came 
in after dinner, and is simple, unaffected, and 
very childlike. Her perfect simplicity and 
sweet manners are charming." 

Miss Lane also enjoyed a bit of continental 
travel, and it was not until the autumn of 1855 
that she returned to America — returned to 
meet her first great grief in the death of her 
only sister, Mary, on the far-away shores of the 
Pacific, which was quickly followed by that of 
a brother, to whom she was tenderly attached. 

It was, therefore, with her beauty and spirits 
somewhat subdued that this lovely girl accom- 
panied the bachelor President to the White 
150 



The Bonny Lass of Lancaster 

House, making her first reappearance in public 
at the inaugural ball, clad in a simple white 
gown, flower trimmed, and with a necklace of 
pearls. Now was her opportunity to repay her 
uncle for some of the kindness showered upon 
the little orphan of Mercersburg, and gladly 
she performed every duty, however onerous, al- 
though in the seating of guests at state dinners 
and other ceremonial details, she was much as- 
sisted by the President's private secretary, who 
was the boy cousin with whom she had so often 
played, James Buchanan Henry. 

This administration was a memorable one in 
many ways, while the President not only re- 
ceived official visits, but entertained hosts of 
personal friends from home and abroad. 
Among these last was the Prince of Wales, who 
was their guest for five days, and who presented 
his gracious hostess with portraits of all the 
royal family. 

Harriet Lane was now at the zenith of her 
glorious career, and only one other mistress of 
the White House has excited so much interest 
or been so universally popular. The dignified, 
courtly bachelor-President, with his fascinating 
niece beside him, was a picture the people loved 
to look upon and their receptions were always 
thronged. Her name was a household word 
151 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

and streets, vessels, clubs, and even articles of 
dress were named for her. 

But it was an apprehensive regime, for war 
clouds were now gathering thick and fast. 

So we can imagine that it was with almost a 
sigh of relief that, at the end of four years, 
Buchanan resigned his proud position, while his 
journey from Washington to Lancaster was a 
continuous ovation, and, as he drove up to the 
door at Wheatlands, the city guards stood 
drawn up in front of the house and a band 
joyously played " Home Sweet Home ! " 

Then ensued the exciting, dreadful years of 
carnage, during which our bonny lass was, as 
ever, the ex-President's dear companion in the 
seclusion now most congenial to him ; but, when 
peace was declared, he could keep her no longer. 

Therefore, one January day, in 1866, the big 
brick house blossomed with flowers and shone 
with cheery, blazing fires, while carriage-loads 
of gay folk drove from far and near to see the 
stately belle give her heart and hand to the 
young man from Baltimore. 

Yes, she of whom it has been said that she 
received more offers of marriage than any other 
American woman; she who had not been 
tempted by foreign titles or unbounded wealth, 
at last wedded her early love of the dear old 
152 



The Bonny Lass of Lancaster 

Bedford Springs days, Henry Elliott Johnston, 
of whom it need only be said that he was fully 
worthy to be the husband of Harriet Lane. 

You may be sure that the first son born to 
the happy pair was given the name of him who 
had been his mother's best " guide, philosopher 
and friend," and who thus wrote to his ward, 
regarding this cherished babe: 

" I sincerely and ardently pray for your boy 
long life, happiness and prosperity, and that he 
may become a wise and a useful man, under the 
blessing of Providence, in his day and genera- 
tion. Much will depend on his early and 
Christian training. Be not too indulgent, nor 
make him too much of an idol." 

This was indited only a few months before 
the " Sage of Wheatlands " finally succumbed 
to that enemy which had troubled him for years 
— the rheumatic gout — leaving the house at 
Lancaster to his niece, and there she and her lit- 
tle ones passed many summers. 

Much that he wished for his young name- 
sake came to pass, for James Buchanan John- 
ston grew into a youth of rare promise, great 
loveliness of character and marked intellectual 
powers. 

Long life, however, was not granted him, 
and he died in his fifteenth year, while his heart- 
*S3 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

broken parents sought distraction amid the 
orange groves and grape vineyards of Italy, 
there only to lose Henry — their sole remain- 
ing child. Two years later, too, the father 
followed his boys into the better land. 

Since then, widowed and childless, Harriet 
Lane Johnston has lived chiefly in Washington, 
the center of a circle of most devoted friends; 
but verily, there have been shadows, as well as 
sunshine, in the varied career of the bonny lass 
of Lancaster. 



154 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE LINCOLN LADS 

JUST one hundred years ago, in a tumble- 
down, windowless shanty built on a small 
clearing in what is now Larue county, 
Kentucky, a red, scrawny, little " man-child " 
entered upon a rather rough existence in this 
" vale of tears." 

That the Lincolns were " po' whites," no 
one can deny, for not a plantation negro but 
had more to eat and wear than they, while the 
father could neither read nor write his name. 

At that period of our commonwealth, too, 
all manufactured articles were so scarce and so 
expensive that, like many others, they were 
forced to use thorns for pins ; substitute bits of 
bone and slices of corn cob for buttons; grind 
up crusts of rye bread for coffee and drink as 
tea a decoction made from dried currant leaves. 

Who, then, that a few years later saw the 
tall, long-legged, ungainly son of Thomas Lin- 
coln, running about in bare or moccasined feet 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

(he never wore shoes until a grown man), clad 
in deer-skin breeches and leggings, a shirt of 
homespun cotton or wool, and with his head 
covered by a coon-skin cap, the tail of which 
hung down his back, would ever have dreamed 
that he was destined to become not only the 
head of the nation, but the pilot of the Ship of 
State through the most troublous waters it has 
ever known ! 

" All that I am or hope to be I owe to my 
angel mother," Abraham Lincoln was wont to 
say in after years, so we must believe that 
Nancy Hanks Lincoln was a rare woman to 
have thus left her impress on his young charac- 
ter, at so early an age; since she died before he 
reached his ninth birthday and shortly after 
they had all left their " old Kentucky home " 
to build for themselves a log cabin in the wilds 
of Indiana. But at that mother's knee he had 
learned to read and already absorbed the Bible, 
" iEsop's Fables," and the " Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress," the three books which formed the literary 
taste of our sixteenth President. 

They awakened in him an insatiable thirst 
for learning, so he would walk miles to borrow 
a wished-for volume, and as paper was an al- 
most unknown luxury, copy out such passages 
as struck him, on a smooth shingle, with a piece 
156 



The Lincoln Lads 



of charcoal. On boards, also, he tried his 
" 'prentice hand " at essay writing and verse 
making. 

Much, too, did he owe to his stepmother, 
a thrifty, energetic woman who, after a year of 
motherless desolation, brought cheer and com- 
parative comfort to the home of shiftless 
Thomas and his little ones — Sarah, Abe, and a 
young orphan cousin named Dennis Hanks. 

Out there in the wild woods, then, chopping 
rails and lumber, young Abraham cultivated 
both his mind and muscle, while he grew and 
grew into a long, lank youth, standing six feet 
four inches in his moccasins. When, too, at 
seventeen, he heard the address of a famous 
lawyer at a murder trial, it aroused his sleep- 
ing genius and decided his future career on the 
spot. From that day on he would " speechify," 
as he called it, on all occasions, while the gap- 
ing rustics clustered round to listen, and his 
father grumbled — " When Abe begins to 
speak, all hands flock to hear him." 

Never had he more than a year of regular 
schooling in all his life, but Dame Fortune 
seems ever to crown with her choicest laurels 
the hard-earned knowledge gained by the light 
of pine knots, for it is the most thorough a 
man can possess. So he almost learned his 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

Blackstone by heart and, after trying a dozen 
different trades, was able to " hang out his 
shingle " and start in to practise law at Spring- 
field, Illinois. 

It was in that pleasant little Western city, 
then, that he henceforth made his home, and 
there he married a sprightly but most eccentric 
girl who, from a child, had declared she should 
some day be the wife of a President. Mary 
Todd was the daughter of Dr. Todd of Ken- 
tucky, but at the time of her marriage with Mr. 
Lincoln, lived with a sister in Springfield, and 
there their four boys were born, while unex- 
pected honors crowded thick and fast upon the 
young husband. The big, homely, but ever 
kindly backwoodsman had the gift of winning 
friends and his whimsical jokes and stories were 
passed from mouth to mouth and laughed over 
by all classes. 

His admirers sent him to the State Legisla- 
ture and then to Congress. This set his feet 
in the political pathway, and at the birth of the 
Republican party in Illinois, he was prime coun- 
sellor. His advice was: "Let us in building 
our new party, make our corner stone the Dec- 
laration of Independence. Let us build on this 
rock and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against us." 

158 






The Lincoln Lads 



Having, years before, had his sympathies 
stirred by the Slave Market at New Orleans, 
he now threw himself, heart and soul, into the 
movement for the freedom of the black man, 
and, when a successor for the cultured, highly- 
polished gentleman, James Buchanan, was 
spoken of, the name of plain, self-taught, honest 
Abe Lincoln stood out first and foremost. 
Could extremes have more completely met? 

But it is in the home life of " Father Abra- 
ham," we are most interested and it was to 
that home his thoughts at once reverted when 
privately informed that he was the leader in 
the race. 

His first words were: "There's a little 
woman down at our house would like to hear 
this. I'll go down and tell her." And off he 
hurried to the two-story frame dwelling, where 
wife and children were anxiously awaiting the 
glad tidings. 

The four sons of Abraham and Mary Todd 
Lincoln were named Robert, Edward, William 
and Thomas. Of these Edward died in in- 
fancy, but three lived to become illustrious 
boys of the White House. 

Robert Lincoln was considerably older than 
his younger surviving brothers, and was much 
away at school in those Springfield days just be- 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

fore the war, going first to Phillip's Academy 
at Exeter and then to Harvard. 

But when the committee from the National 
Convention waited upon Mr. Lincoln to inform 
him officially of his nomination, they were met 
in the courtyard by two manly little lads, who 
welcomed them with a courteous " Good even- 
ing, gentlemen." 

"Are you Mr. Lincoln's son?" asked Mr. 
Evarts of New York, addressing the elder. 

" Yes sir," replied the youth. 

" Then let's shake hands," and all began 
greeting him so warmly that the jealousy of the 
younger boy, who was standing by the gatepost, 
was excited and he sang out: " I'm a Lincoln, 
too." 

At this the delegates laughed heartily and at 
once saluted the youngest of the family, the one 
whom honest Abe called " Tadpole," a name 
that became quickly contracted into " Taddie," 
and " Tad." 

These lads were about ten and eight when 
their father was elected President of the United 
States, and they were full of glee at going with 
him to Washington. 

William Wallace has been called " the flower 
of the family," and he seems to have been a 
delicate, studious little fellow, with literary 
160 



The Lincoln Lads 



tastes and peculiarly winning ways. There 
was, however, a strong spice of his parent's 
humor in his composition and he was not back- 
ward in joining in any fun started by small, 
mischievous Tad. 

He would often sit for hours by his mother's 
side, poring over a book, and while in the White 
House he began scribbling some of his boyish 
thoughts on paper. At length, too, he ventured 
to send the following little poem to the editor 
of the " National Republican," who gladly pub- 
lished it: 

LINES ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL 
EDWARD BAKER 

" There was no patriot like Baker, 
So noble and so true ; 
He fell as a soldier on the field, 
His face to the sky of blue. 

His voice is silent in the hall 

Which oft his presence graced; 
No more he'll hear the loud acclaim 

Which rung from place to place. 

No squeamish notions filled his breast — 

The Union was his theme; 
No surrender and no compromise, 

His day thought and night's dream. 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

His country has her part to play 
To'rds those he has left behind; 

His widow and his children all 
She must always keep in mind." 

It was in the White House, too, that he 
passed away in the height of his happy, promis- 
ing boyhood, and just when the War of the Re- 
bellion was raging with greatest fierceness. He 
contracted a severe cold, riding on his little pony 
in inclement weather; typhoid fever set in, and 
day by day he grew more white and wan, until 
at last his gentle spirit fled, and his pretty 
brown head was laid " under the sod and the 
dew," while never was lad more truly mourned. 

He had been his mother's favorite child, but 
she gave away everything that could remind her 
of him, and never again entered the chamber 
where he died or the Blue Room where he lay 
in his little casket. 

Long afterward, too, President Lincoln, in 
reading Shakespeare's " King John " to a mili- 
tary friend, closed with Constance's pathetic 
wail: 

" ' And, Father Cardinal, I have heard that 
we shall see and know our friends in heaven. 
If that be true, I shall see my boy again.' " 

Then, looking up, he said: 
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The Lincoln Lads 



" Colonel, did you ever dream of a lost 
friend, and feel that you were holding sweet 
communion with that friend, and yet have a sad 
consciousness that it was not a reality? Just 
so I dream of my boy Willie." 

At which, overcome by emotion, he dropped 
his head on the table and sobbed aloud. 

After this bereavement Tad became more 
than ever his father's pet and ran freely in and 
out of the public offices, while at the War De- 
partment he was made much of by men and of- 
ficers. He was afflicted with an impediment in 
his speech, but this only seemed to endear him 
the more to his parents, and may also have 
been the reason why he was not sent to school. 
Apparently, indeed, his education was very 
much neglected, for he never even learned to 
read until after leaving Washington. 

He was an odd little chap, extremely affec- 
tionate, but mischievous as a monkey, and, I 
fear, sometimes almost as unreasonable. 

In an unoccupied apartment of the White 
House he fitted up a miniature theatre, with 
stage, curtains, orchestra, stalls and parquette, 
all complete, and was highly indignant when 
one day he found it taken possession of by some 
photographers who had come to take views of 
the government buildings and wished there to 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

develop their plates. He made a great uproar 
and, locking the door, pocketed the key, leaving 
all the chemicals inside. 

Coaxing and persuasion were of no avail. 

" They have no business in my room, and shall 
not go in, even to get their things," he declared. 

At last the President, who was sitting for his 
picture, heard of the difficulty. 

" Tad, go and unlock that door," he com- 
manded mildly. 

But my young man refused, marching off to 
his mother's chamber instead; nor could the 
photographers continue their work until his 
father went after him and brought back the de- 
sired article. Later, however, Mr. Lincoln re- 
marked : 

" Tad is a peculiar child. He was violently 
excited when I went to him. I said c Tad, do 
you know you are making your father a great 
deal of trouble ? ' At which he burst into tears, 
instantly giving me the key." 

That his youngest boy was often on the great 
man's mind is shown by the many times he re- 
ferred to him in the telegrams and letters to 
his wife when parted during the summer 
months. 

Thus in August, 1864, he wired — " All rea- 
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The Lincoln Lads 



sonably well. Bob not here yet. How is dear 
Tad?" 

And again: 

" All well, including Tad's pony and the 
goats." 

While a third message read: 

" Think you had better put Tad's pistol 
away. I had an ugly dream about him." 

On another occasion, too, he wrote to Mrs. 
Lincoln : 

" Tell dear Tad poor Nanny goat is lost. 
. . . The day you left Nanny was found 
resting herself and chewing her little cud on the 
middle of Tad's bed, but now she's gone." 

The devotion between. the two was deep and 
sympathetic, and the little lad was always Mr. 
Lincoln's companion on his trips down the Poto- 
mac, and was beside him, clinging to his hand, 
when, after peace was declared, he made his en- 
thusiastic entry into Richmond. He was a very 
miserable urchin, though, when the White 
House stables were burned, and the precious 
ponies given to him and Willie, as well as the 
carriage horses, perished in the flames. He 
threw himself howling upon the floor and re- 
fused to be comforted. 

Meanwhile, Robert Todd Lincoln, the eldest 

i6 5 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

son, was pursuing his studies at Cambridge, al- 
though he made frequent visits home, and was 
most anxious to leave college and join the army. 

This he eventually did, was given the rank 
of Captain, and served on Grant's staff until 
the close of the war. He was a brave youth, 
of quiet, reserved manners, but lofty soul, who 
rather scorned the follies of fashionable society 
and, after his father's tragic death, proved his 
mother's mainstay and consolation. 

When Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated the sec- 
ond time, in 1865, it is said that a brilliant star 
was seen at noonday, which appeared a bright 
augury of the peace that ere long descended 
upon the land, and it was a joyful moment for 
the President when the conflict was finally de- 
clared at an end. 

On Good Friday morning he said to Captain 
Bob: 

" Well, my son, you have returned safely 
from the front, and now you must lay aside your 
uniform and return to college. I wish you to 
read law for three years, and at the end of that 
time I hope we will be able to tell whether you 
will make a lawyer or not." 

Turning to his wife, too, he remarked: " We 
must both be more cheerful in future. Be- 
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The Lincoln Lads 



tween the war and the loss of our darling Willie 
we have been very miserable." 

That night the great heart of the loving, con- 
siderate parent, the forgiving patriot, was stilled 
forever by the assassin's bullet, and the whole 
nation stood aghast. 

Robert rose manfully to the occasion, but 
poor little Tad was almost frantic. For twenty- 
four hours he crouched at the foot of his moth- 
er's bed, a world of agony in his young face, 
and sobbed inconsolably. But when the Easter 
sun burst forth in glorious splendor on Sunday 
morning, it seemed to bring him a ray of com- 
fort. Of a caller he asked: 

" Do you think my father has gone to 
heaven? " 

" I have not a doubt of it," was the gentle- 
man's prompt reply. 

" Then," he stammered, in his broken way, 
" I am glad he has gone there; for he never 
was happy after he came here. This was not 
a good place for him." 

From that moment he was calmer, and was 
the only one who could quiet Mrs. Lincoln's 
wild grief, often pattering into her room at 
night to beg : 

" Don't cry, mama ! I cannot sleep if you 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

cry. Papa was good, and he has gone to 
heaven. He is happy there." 

Five weejcs after the assassination the Lin- 
colns left the White House for a modest hotel 
at Hyde Park, one of the suburbs of Chicago. 
It was a great change, but " necessity knows no 
law," and the family of the late President was 
far from rich. A pension was later granted 
to Mrs. Lincoln, but with all her troubles what 
wonder the poor woman's mind gave way, es- 
pecially when loving little Tad, at eighteen, also 
went to be, as he once said, " with father and 
brother Willie in heaven." 

So Robert is the only one remaining of all 
the bright Lincoln lads. He faithfully carried 
out the President's last wish for him and studied 
law, but he served as Secretary of War during 
Mr. Arthur's administration, and has also rep- 
resented the United States at the Court of St. 
James. He is a worthy son of a great father 
and has performed all the duties of his high 
offices with marked ability. 



16S 



CHAPTER XV 

SOME LITTLE PEOPLE FROM TENNESSEE 

A FEW years ago one of the leading peri- 
odicals of the day printed the love story 
of a humble tailor in the little North 
Carolina town of Laurens. There, the young 
man delved sedulously at his trade, making, 
among others, a coat for a prominent lawyer 
and politician, Henry C. Young, and that gar- 
ment is still treasured by his descendants, who 
proudly display it as a work of a President of 
the United States. 

There, too, he met and fell in love with a 
Miss Sarah Worth. They became engaged and 
a pretty picture is drawn of the youthful pair 
working together over a quilting-frame, laying, 
stuffing and quilting a patchwork spread, while 
on either end the lover wrought in the letters 
S. W., the initials of his sweetheart's name. 

When, too, he was called away from that 
part of the country he left with her his " goose " 
169 



Boys and Girls of the White Ho use 

— the emblem of his trade — as a parting sou- 
venir. 

Misunderstandings arising later, the engage- 
ment was broken and the young lady married 
another; but her granddaughter still retains the 
clumsy iron with which Tailor Johnson pressed 
his coats and trousers, and which he presented 
to her ancestress. 

This lady scouts the idea of Andrew John- 
son being so illiterate, but the popular story 
runs that, left fatherless at the age of four, and 
apprenticed to a tailor when only ten, his edu- 
cation was chiefly picked up from a fellow-work- 
man who taught him the alphabet, until after 
his marriage with Miss Eliza McCardle, a re- 
fined girl of seventeen, who gave him lessons 
in writing and ciphering, besides reading im- 
proving books aloud to him, while he cut out 
and sewed. 

They set up housekeeping in the little moun- 
tain town of Greenville, in Tennessee, and, ever 
ambitious, the young husband took for his motto 
" Upward and Onward," and, launching into 
local politics, rose step by step, until he reached 
the State Senate, represented his district for ten 
years in Congress, was twice elected Governor 
of Tennessee, then Vice-President, and finally a 
170 



Some Little People from Tennessee 

grievous chance landed him in the White' House 
itself. 

Surely, then, no boy, however humble his 
birth or meagre his advantages, need despair 
of getting on in the world when he considers 
the phenomenal career of our seventeenth Pres- 
ident. 

Up in that plain, little home set on a hill, 
and within a stone's throw of the tailor-shop, 
two daughters and three sons were born to the 
Johnsons and grew up into healthy, hearty girls 
and boys, early inured to hardships, but given 
as good educations as the times and the family 
purse would permit. 

Martha, the eldest, is remembered as a plain, 
quiet little maid of whom it was said " she never 
had time to play." But that was because she 
always had some household task to perform 
and took such almost motherly care of the 
younger children. They hardly knew how to 
get on without her when she was sent for three 
terms to a school at Georgetown, D. C, and 
while there she often spent her holidays at the 
Executive Mansion, being the guest of President 
and Mrs. Polk. 

At these times she kept her eyes open and was 
keenly observant of the people and customs of 
171 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

the capital, although she was so shy and distant 
that all the stately kindness of her hostess could 
not overcome her painful reserve, and she, her- 
self, would deprecate her awkward conduct in 
the imposing residence through which the voices 
of childhood never resounded. Little, then, did 
the bashful schoolgirl dream she should ever 
enter those portals as mistress and daughter 
of the White House. Gladly, too, she returned 
to her home and some years after wedded Judge 
David T. Patterson in the most quiet manner 
possible. 

Flaxen-haired Mary, the second girl, was 
even more diffident than her sister, although she 
inherited a greater share of the beauty of her 
mother and grandmother, who had been belles 
of the county. She was extremely domestic, 
and at an early age became Mrs. Daniel Stover. 

Of the boys, Charlie was the darling of the 
household, a bright-spirited youth, who studied 
to be a physician, and when the war broke out, 
was appointed a surgeon in the First Tennessee 
Infantry. Robert, too, is said to have been 
the most popular boy ever raised in that part 
of the country and that he never made an enemy 
in his life, while, of course, there was a little 
Andrew Johnson, Jr., who was but a laddie of 
twelve when his father became President. 
172 



Some Little People from Tennessee 

The gentle mother was always in rather deli- 
cate health, so she could never spend but two 
months with her husband, when he was in 
Washington attending to his Congressional du- 
ties. She greatly preferred her own home and 
was very happy surrounded by her children and 
grandchildren, but the War of the Rebellion 
brought troublous times throughout all the 
South, and to none more than to the Republicans 
of Greenville. 

Consternation, then, reigned in the Johnson 
household — from which the husband and 
father had long been absent — when, one April 
day in 1862, an order came commanding the 
entire family to pass beyond the Confederate 
lines within thirty-six hours. 

Even the little folks must have been alarmed, 
but Mrs. Johnson was too ill to be moved, the 
state of their affairs was most unsettled, and 
they knew not where to go. So, though doubt- 
less with fear and trembling, they ventured to 
disobey, writing to the military authorities for 
more time, and remained in the old brick home- 
stead all throughout that dread summer. 

But with the coming of September they felt 

they could delay no longer, and procuring a pass, 

the mother, with her family and her son-in-law, 

Mr. Stover, left their native mountains, and, 

173 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

after experiencing untold discomforts and dan- 
gers, finally reached Nashville, where Mr. John- 
son was located as War Governor. 

An extract from a diary kept by a citizen of 
the state capital reads: 

" Quite a sensation has been produced by the 
arrival in Nashville of Governor Johnson's fam- 
ily, after incurring and escaping numerous perils 
while making their exodus from East Tennessee. 
The male members of the family were in danger 
of being hung on more than one occasion. 

The great joy of the reunion of this long 
and sorrowfully separated family may be im- 
agined. I will not attempt to describe it. 
Even the Governor's Roman firmness was over- 
come, and he wept tears of thankfulness at this 
merciful deliverance of his beloved ones from 
the hands of their unpitying persecutors." 

Many, too, can still remember the happy 
faces of the grandchildren — little Pattersons 
and Stovers — as they played about the capital. 

Here Mrs. Martha Patterson soon joined 
them and all were rejoicing over the reunion, 
when a cruel blow came in the sudden death of 
" dear Charlie." The young doctor started out 
one morning on his professional rounds and, en- 
countering a horse belonging to a brother officer, 
174 



Some Little People from Tennessee 

sprang upon its back. He had gone but a short 
distance, however, when the high-mettled ani- 
mal reared upon its hind legs and the young 
man, thrown violently backward upon the 
frozen ground, was instantly killed, his skull be- 
ing fractured. 

As misfortunes, too, seldom come singly, a 
few months later Mary's husband was slain in 
battle, leaving her a trio of little children under 
ten years of age — two daughters, Sarah and 
Lillie, and one boy, named for his grandfather. 

How gladly the Johnsons welcomed the re- 
turn of peace no one can know, and they 
were just preparing to flee back to their moun- 
tains when the dastardly shot fired by John 
Wilkes Booth in the theatre at Washington, 
struck down the " man of destiny," who had 
steered the Ship of State into a quiet harbor, 
and placed the plain tailor of Tennessee at the 
head of the nation. 

Very quietly was Andrew Johnson inaugu- 
rated, the same morning that Lincoln passed 
away, and no bands of music, no cheers and no 
ceremonial ushered him into the Home of the 
Presidents. 

It was a most difficult position, too, he was 
called upon to fill. It was hopeless to try and 
satisfy his party and — a Southern man with 
175 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

Northern principles — he just struggled through 
his term of office, with small satisfaction or suc- 
cess. 

Frail Mrs. Johnson shrank with horror from 
the honor thus thrust upon her; so it was the one 
who had ever been her " right hand," her dear 
eldest child, who stepped in and filled the breach. 
Diffident Martha Patterson sacrificed her own 
feelings and, after allowing Mrs. Lincoln five 
weeks of mourning within the now desolate 
mansion, appeared with her father at Washing- 
ton, bringing with her her young son Andrew, 
and little daughter Belle, to be the children of 
the White House. 

Republican simplicity, too, reigned there, for, 
as she said to a newspaper correspondent : " We 
are a plain people, sir, from the mountains of 
Tennessee, and we do not propose to put on airs 
because we have the fortune to occupy this place 
for a little while." 

Mrs. Mary Stover soon followed her sister 
and assisted her at all large functions, but she 
cared far more for their private apartments, 
where the fast aging mother pursued the " even 
tenor of her way," and where her three children 
and their Patterson cousins made merry to- 
gether. 

So, again, as in the days of Jackson, a bevy 
176 



Some Little People from Tennessee 

of gay little Andys overran the old residence. 
For, clustered about President Andrew Johnson 
and perpetuating his name, were Andrew John- 
son, Jr., his youngest son, a boy just entering 
his teens, and his grandsons — Andrew Johnson 
Patterson and Andrew Johnson Stover; all of 
whom, with their sisters, had very happy and 
sometimes very boisterous times within the 
historic walls. 

The daily routine of school lessons and music 
practice was carried on the same as in their 
country home, but in the evenings games, danc- 
ing and innocent fun " sped the hours with fly- 
ing feet," and it was no uncommon sight to see 
the President, in smoking-jacket and slippers, 
assisting the children to roast apples at the open 
fire, while a generous jug of cider simmered on 
the hearth. 

In warm weather, too, he delighted to bundle 
all the small fry into a carriage and drive off to 
Pierce's Mill, Rock Creek, or some other rural 
spot, and there hold a picnic — the little folk 
fishing, wading and gathering flowers, while 
they always returned laden with blossoms and 
wild wood trophies. 

Their mode of living was, perhaps, almost 
too plain for the ruler of a great nation, but 
President Johnson was always rather ostenta- 
177 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

tious in talking about his plebeian origin and 
what he owned to the People; and Mrs. Patter- 
son was not ashamed to rise early, skim the milk 
and attend to the dairy before breakfast; while, 
doubtless, many of the delicious home-made 
dishes which graced the table were prepared by 
her hands. 

On all state occasions, however, she ever ap- 
peared extremely well and richly dressed and 
presided with dignity and tact. The Govern- 
ment, too, certainly owed her a vote of thanks 
for the time and trouble she gave to the refur- 
nishing of the White House. 

At the close of the war, the Mansion was in 
a sadly run-down condition. Soldiers had wan- 
dered at will through the suites of rooms, and 
guards slept upon the sofas. The walls were 
dingy, the antique furniture soiled and worn. 
i\t the first reception it was difficult to make the 
place presentable. The thread-bare carpets had 
to be covered with linen, and, as one writer has 
said : " The apartments were destitute of orna- 
ment save two kinds, which are more touchingly 
beautiful than gems of the East. Natural 
flowers were in profusion, and left their fra- 
grance, while the little children of the house 
were living, breathing ornaments, attracting 
every eye." 

178 



Some Little People from Tennessee 

In the spring of 1866, however, Congress 
made an appropriation of thirty thousand dol- 
lars for the re-furnishing of the Presidential 
Home, and all through the warm months Mrs. 
Patterson labored, trying to make this sum go 
as far as possible; selecting the carpets, having 
the furniture re-upholstered and superintending 
the decoration of the vast apartments. The 
exquisite Blue Room was long a proof of her 
artistic taste. 

After this, juvenile parties were quite a fea- 
ture of the Republican Court, but the very larg- 
est of all was one given by Andrew Johnson, 
himself, to celebrate his sixtieth birthday. 

It was a holiday ball, given on December 
30, 1868, just after his last Christmas in the 
White House, and the tiny beaux and belles 
of the capital were in a flutter of excitement at 
receiving an invitation from " The President of 
the United States." Four hundred boys and 
girls were bidden and you may be sure there 
were few who failed to make a bow or curtsey 
to the Head of the Nation, his daughter and 
grandchildren on the festal night. 

This was one of the two occasions when 
Grandma Johnson made her appearance in pub- 
lic. She sat in a great chair of ebony and satin, 
beaming upon the blithe young company, and 
179 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

when the guests were presented to her, smiled 
and apologized for not rising by saying: " My 
dears, I am an invalid." 

Many of these little people were pupils at 
Marini's Dancing Academy, so there were gay 
waltzes, polkas and lanciers in the big East 
Room, as well as most wonderful fancy dances. 

Pretty Belle Patterson was one of the most 
graceful dancers, and some of the boys were 
Very expert in the " Highland Fling " and 
" Sailor's Hornpipe "; but the star performers 
of the evening were small Miss Keen, a particu- 
lar friend of the White House girls, and little 
Miss Gaburri, who gave a Spanish dance, in 
a Spanish costume, all a-glitter with sequins. 

At the end, old and young, big youths and 
tiny tots, all scampered merrily through a " Vir- 
ginia reel," and then came the grand march 
to the dining-room, where a flower-decked and 
beautifully-ornamented table stood, laden with 
cakes, creams and confections — the "real 
party " to the wee folk. 

So these " plain people from Tennessee " 
came to be much beloved by those who knew 
them best. The servants simply adored them 
and wept unrestrained, when called to bid them 
farewell, while a scribe of that period has 
recorded of the little Pattersons and Stovers: 
180 



Some Little People from Tennessee 

" No President ever before had in the White 
House so many children, or as youthful ones as 
were the five grandchildren of President John- 
son, nor will there ever be a brighter band 
there." 

Too young were the Andrews, Belle, Sarah 
and Lillie to comprehend the cares resting upon 
their mothers, or the troubles which beset their 
grandfather until he only just escaped impeach- 
ment. So they were scarcely as pleased as their 
elders when the Johnson administration drew to 
a close and they returned to their mountain 
home. Not long after, Mary — the little 
Stover's mother — married a Mr. Bacon and 
they removed to a new domicile in Carter 
county. It was at her house, too, that the tailor 
President was stricken with paralysis and 
" passed on," six months before his wife, who 
had been in frail health so many years. Indeed, 
the invalid not only outlived her husband, but 
her son Robert, as well, until, at last, young 
Andy Johnson was the sole child remaining 
with her in the old home nest, 'neath the ragged 
hilly peaks of East Tennessee. 



181 



CHAPTE XVI 

THE YOUNG GRANTS 

A PHRENOLOGIST had made his ap- 
pearance in the insignificant little town 
of Georgetown, in Ohio, and was as- 
tonishing the natives by feeling the " bumps " on 
their craniums and revealing their character- 
istics. 

" You go and be examined, 'Lyssus," said old 
Dr. B — , pushing forward a round-shouldered, 
freckle-faced, sober little urchin with straight, 
sandy hair and bright blue eyes. 

Before he knew it, then, the boy was in front 
of the scientific man and his fingers were mov- 
ing slowly over his scalp. 

" This is no very common head," murmured 
the phrenologist, half to himself. " It is an 
extraordinary head ! " 

" Indeed," quoth the doctor. 

" And do you think he is ever likely to dis- 
tinguish himself in mathematics?" 

" Yes," was the reply. " In mathematics or 
182 



The Young Grants 



anything else. It would not be strange if we 
should see him President of the United States." 

At this a roar of laughter arose from the 
crowd of bystanders. 

" 'Lyss Grant, the tanner's son, a Presi- 
dent! " 

" Useless Grant," as he was dubbed, " in the 
White House! Ha, ha, ha! " 

The idea was absurd ! 

I think, probably, Hiram Ulysses Grant gig- 
gled himself; but, if not a very bright scholar, 
he was possessed of a certain dogged obstinacy 
or persistence — what we call " stick-to-it-ive- 
ness," which won him out, many a time and oft. 

As, for instance, when, at twelve years of 
age, he beat the men of the town at a job of 
stone-lifting. 

A new building was going up and a huge 
boulder from White Oak Creek was selected 
for the doorstep. For hours the workmen 
tugged and hauled at it, but, at length, con- 
cluded it was too heavy to lift and they must 
give it up. 

" Here, let me try," said young 'Lyss, who 
was driving the ox-team. " If you'll help me, 
I'll load it." 

They jeered at him, but promised their as- 
sistance. Then the lad directed the laborers to 
- 183 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

prop up one end of the stone. They did so and 
" chocked " it, after which Ulysses backed the 
cart over the great rock, slung it underneath 
the wagon by chains, hoisted up the other end 
in the same manner, and, at last, drove off with 
it, in triumph, to the town. 

To-day, that very stone is set in the sidewalk 
at Georgetown and pointed out as the one which 
General Grant, when a boy, hauled from White 
Oak Creek. 

Young Ulysses was no genius. He was just 
a healthy, commonplace, everyday lad, loving 
fishing, swimming and skating far better than 
his books and hating the work he was called 
upon to do in the tannery. But he was always 
good at arithmetic and he could ride and drive 
a horse better than any youth in all that coun- 
try round. Indeed, horses were his passion, 
and he was mighty keen at " horse-trading," 
making quite a bit of money thereby. 

He was not, then, particularly overjoyed 
when one year on his return from boarding- 
school for his Christmas holidays, his father in- 
formed him that he had applied for an appoint- 
ment for him to West Point. 

Perhaps he hoped he would not get it, but he 
did. He also easily passed his examination, 
184 



The Young Grants 



and the following fall found him at the Mili- 
tary Academy on the Hudson. 

By some mistake, his appointment was made 
out to Ulysses Simpson Grant; his classmates 
nicknamed him " Uncle Sam," and as " Sam 
Grant " he was known through all his cadet 
days, while he was U. S. Grant forever after. 

He struggled through his four years' course, 
though without distinguishing himself in any 
way, unless it was for cavalry tactics and horse- 
manship — for a famous high jump of his, on 
a big sorrel, over a bar six feet from the ground, 
is still marked and shown as " Grant's upon 
York." 

Graduated in June of 1843, ne was assigned 
to the Fourth Regiment of United States In- 
fantry, then stationed at Jefferson Barracks, a 
few miles from St. Louis, and, what was more 
important to the fledgeling soldier, near to 
" Whitehaven," the country home of one of his 
classmates, and, while visiting there, he lost his 
heart to this chum's sister, Miss Julia Dent, a 
bright, sensible girl, full of life and spirits. 

The course of true love, however, did not run 

exactly smooth, as Judge Dent hoped for a more 

brilliant match for his daughter, and was rather 

pleased when the poor lieutenant was ordered 

185 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

off to frontier duty under General Taylor. 

But, hearing that his regiment was to pro- 
ceed to Mexico, was just the " push " the young 
man needed to put his fate to the test, and, hur- 
rying off to Whitehaven, he found Miss Julia 
seated in a small carriage with her brother, just 
starting for a wedding at some distance off. 

Persuading young Dent to ride his horse in- 
stead, Grant slipped into his place beside the 
bonny maiden and, taking the reins, they set off 
across the rough Missourian roads. 

Now it chanced that the river Gravois, which 
they had to cross, had been much swollen by 
heavy rains and the frail bridge which spanned 
it was nearly submerged with a wild and turbid 
flood. 

Miss Julia eyed this in alarm and inquired 
anxiously — " Are you sure it is all right? " 

" Oh yes, it is all right," the lieutenant as- 
sured her, in careless man-fashion. 

" Well, now, Ulysses," she said, " I am going 
to cling to you if we go down." 

" We won't go down," he replied, and drove 
straight through the water, with the frightened 
girl clinging to his arm all the way. 

When safe on the other side, she drew a long 
breath of relief, but the young man was very 
silent for some time. Then, clearing his throat. 
186 



The Young Grants 



he said: " Julia, you spoke just now of cling- 
ing to me no matter what happened. I wonder 
if you would cling to me all my life." 

Her answer we know not, but conclude it was 
satisfactory, since she was true through a long, 
five years' engagement, when her soldier lover 
was away in Mexico, during which time he 
saved her brother's life and thereby won his 
fiancee's family over to his side. 

So, one summer day, there was a merry little 
wedding in St. Louis, and, a few months after, 
they went to housekeeping in a tiny, vine-cov- 
ered cottage, nigh the barracks at Detroit. 
Their first child, however, was born at White- 
haven, and christened Frederick Dent. 

But an army man has no settled home, and 
when Lieutenant Grant was ordered to the, then, 
very far distant territory of California, he de- 
cided to leave his wife and baby with his par- 
ents, in Ohio, while he crossed the hot, sickly 
Isthmus of Panama, and, with seven hundred 
others, made his way to that rough coast, where 
the Gold Craze was just then at its height and 
to which crowds of adventurers were flocking 
to dig for the shining metal. 

The chief thing he found to fight was the 
cholera, which attacked them on the way, and 
this he met, as he had every enemy, bravely and 
187 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

cheerfully, taking entire charge of the plague- 
stricken camp, caring for the sick and burying 
the dead. ., 

But the three years of inaction which followed 
near to the Golden Gate wearied him of army 
life, and, though now a Captain, he resigned 
and gladly sped back to " the States," and his 
little family, where there was now another wee 
laddie to welcome him, born during his absence, 
and whom his wife had named Ulysses after 
him. Fine rolly-poly little fellows were both 
Fred and 'Lyssus, Jr., while, ere long, there 
came a tiny girl, Nellie, and a baby, Jesse, to 
complete the Grant quartette. 

But as mouths to fill increased the father's 
fortunes seemed to wane. Erecting a log house 
on a farm which Judge Dent presented to his 
daughter, he there fought poverty with plough 
and axe for several years, while his wife did the 
work within doors and was her children's sole 
nurse and teacher. Yet, the young Grants were 
happy enough, racing over the sixty acres of 
farmland at " Hardscrabble," as the place was 
appropriately called, and riding the gray and 
the bay, their parents' pet team of fine horses. 

But, somehow, Captain Grant could not make 
farming pay, nor did he do much better at the 
real estate business in St. Louis; so, after a 
188 



The Young Grants 



struggle of six years, the family moved to Ga- 
lena, in Ohio, where he accepted a position in 
his brother's leather store. And it was here 
that his great opportunity came to him. 

April the 12th, 1861, the day of the Fall of 
Sumter, was the turning point in the life of the 
quiet, downhearted man, who was, however, the 
most affectionate of fathers. He would not al- 
low his boys to use the smallest sort of swear- 
word — as he never did himself — but he 
wanted them to be manly, honest, fearless, self- 
reliant and true. His eldest son he taught to 
swim, by simply tossing him into deep water and 
letting him get himself to shore. 

President Lincoln's call for " seventy-five 
thousand men to help put down this rebellion," 
was his call to arms, and, being given the com- 
mand of the Twenty-first Illinois regiment, he 
was soon oft to the war. With him went his 
boy Fred, and all through the conflict this lad 
was his father's shadow — lived in his tent, ate 
at his mess and rode by his side — a volunteer 
aide-de-camp without pay, at thirteen years of 
age. Was not that an experience for so young 
a boy? But Fred Grant curiously resembled 
his distinguished parent in his persistent stead- 
fastness and afterward that father said: 

" My son caused no anxiety either to me or 
i8q 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

to his mother, who was at home. He looked 
out for himself and was in every battle of the 
campaign." 

Uncomplainingly, too, he met every discom- 
fort and privation, although illness pulled him 
down from a hundred and ten to sixty-eight 
pounds. 

His heart, undoubtedly, glowed with pride at 
his father's rapid advancement to the rank of 
General and of the nickname he won at Fort 
Donelson, the U. S. then being read " Uncon- 
ditional Surrender " Grant. 

He was with the camp on the eve of that 
glorious Fourth of July, 1863, when Vicksburg 
surrendered, and saw the arrival of the flag of 
truce, and he has given us this description of it, 
from his youthful point of view: 

" The two staffs mingled and talked about 
all sorts of things and I listened. I remember 
how I wanted to lie down, for I had a tooth- 
ache. The first thing I did after the surren- 
der was to have that tooth pulled. My father 
sat at his little desk. That was all there was in 
the tent, except his cot and my cot, and the 
bottom of his was broken and he had to stretch 
his legs apart when he slept on it to keep him 
from falling through. 

" He began to write very hard and took 
190 



The Young Grants 



great interest in what he was writing. I lay on 
the cot with my face in my hands. We were 
alone and it was toward evening. At last there 
came an orderly with a despatch. I remember 
seeing my father open it. He got up and said: 
' We-e-e-11, I'm glad Vicksburg will surrender 
to-morrow.' " 

It did so, and the whole North rejoiced. 

Eight months later, too, when Ulysses Grant 
went to the White House at Washington to 
meet President Lincoln for the first time and 
receive from him the commission making him 
Lieutenant-General of all the Armies of the 
United States, he took with him his dear little 
soldier boy, that he might share in his honor 
and glory. I wonder, too, if Fred did not meet 
funny little Tad Lincoln on that occasion, and if 
the two lads did not compare notes together. 

Meanwhile, during these anxious days, little 
Nellie Grant and the two younger boys were 
with their mother and grandparents, sometimes 
in Missouri and sometimes in Ohio, and no one 
in all the country rejoiced more than they when 
at length the " cruel war was over," and papa 
and Fred came " marching home again." 

Schools for them, then, had to be thought of, 
and it is said that General Grant escaped the 
same fate as Abraham Lincoln by going on a 
191 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

flying visit to his pet girl, at her Seminary, in 
Burlington, N. J., instead of accompanying the 
Presidential party to Ford's Theatre on that 
dire Good Friday night, as had been expected. 

A few years later, too, when the old phrenol- 
ogist's prediction was fulfilled and he was made 
President of the United States, this only daugh- 
ter, then just in her " teens," stood by his side 
holding his hand while he read his inaugural ad- 
dress, and nearby sat his trio of brave boys as 
well as the little woman who, true to her girlish 
word, " clung to him " through all the ups and 
downs of his varied career. 

Now, on the very crest of the wave of good 
fortune, they took possession of the Nation's 
Homestead and a very happy household it was, 
Mrs. Grant delighting in having old friends and 
relatives with her and giving them a right royal 
time. The first three years were, compara- 
tively, quiet ones, Nellie and Ulysses being at 
school and Fred a cadet at West Point, but Jesse 
might often be seen riding the General's little 
black war horse " Jeff Davis." 

The family was surprised, too, one evening 
to have this same frisky beast come scram- 
pering home without his rider. They may have 
been alarmed, but shortly the boy appeared on 
foot and covered with dust. 
192 



The Young Grants 



" Why, Jesse ! " exclaimed his father, " where 
is Jeff Davis?" 

" I don't know," replied the lad somewhat 
angrily. " He threw me out there in the dirt 
and put off for home." 

At which the President laughed heartily. 

Midsummer generally found all the family 
reunited at Long Branch, while the close of 
President Grant's first term and the commence- 
ment of his second were extremely festive times 
at the Executive Mansion. 

Nellie returned home a full-fledged young 
lady, and Lieutenant Fred, fresh from the Mili- 
tary Academy, was there to be her companion 
and escort. Her particular chum was Miss An- 
nie Barnes, the daughter of a Surgeon-General 
in the Army, who lived opposite the White 
House, and she frequently came for dinner or 
to spend the night, when they would chatter like 
magpies and enjoy an exchange of girlish confi- 
dences. The social whirl, of course, spun them 
into a perfect vortex of gaiety, which reached 
its climax in the grand functions at the " Amer- 
ican Court," while, one summer, the children 
were all treated to a trip abroad. There, too, 
Miss Grant received most distinguished atten- 
tion, both in England and elsewhere. 

It was at this time, also, that she met her 
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Boys and Girls of the White House 

" fate," and a pretty little love affair which be- 
gan on the Russia, culminated, eighteen months 
later in the great East Room, when the pleasant- 
faced maiden of nineteen became the seventh 
White House bride. The groom of twenty- 
three was Mr. Algernon Sartoris, a young Eng- 
lishman from Hampshire, and a nephew of the 
famous actress, Fannie Kemble. 

It was the most brilliant affair Washington 
had ever known — a real Army and Navy wed- 
ding — but I fancy the President must have 
gone through it all with a heavy heart, since it 
took away " the sole daughter of his hearth and 
home " to a foreign land, and father, mother 
and brothers all accompanied the bridal pair to 
New York — the port from which they sailed 
— to bid her " God-speed." 

That Nellie was sadly missed, goes without 
saying, and her absence made a fearful gap in 
the family circle. It was partially filled, 
though, the following autumn, when Fred 
brought another blithe young girl, one of French 
extraction, to be a daughter to the President 
and his faithful wife. 

One of my own youthful reminiscences is of 

a visit I once paid to the City of Chicago, and 

of a very grand wedding which took place on 

the same block where I was staying. A lady 

194 



The Young Grants 



of our household was one of the guests and 
was eloquent over the grandeur of the affair 
and of the richness of the gold plate on which 
the marriage feast was served, while a little 
girl friend persuaded me to walk up and 
down before the tall marble-front house front- 
ing on Lake Michigan, to catch glimpses of the 
lighted interior and the throngs of gaily dressed 
people who came and went. This was the mar- 
riage of Miss Honore to Mr. Potter Palmer, a 
millionaire of the Phoenix City, and it was not 
very long after that a younger sister of that 
night's bride — dainty, vivacious Ida Honore, 
had a similar wedding and gave her heart and 
hand to young Lieutenant Grant. 

So the winter after Nellie sailed away was not 
such a doleful one as had been feared, while 
before the close of the administration a wee 
girl bairnie was born in the Mansion and chris- 
tened in the artistic Blue Room, " Julia Dent." 

This small maid completed the first octave 
of White House babies, but she did not live 
long at the Capital, and at her home in New 
York, was brought up by her French mother in 
an extremely careful and " womanly " way, 
Mrs. Fred Grant having no sympathy, what- 
ever, with the " advanced " ideas for girls. 

Happily and harmoniously, then, the Grant 
195 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

regime ebbed to its close, and, when free from 
office, the General carried out a cherished wish 
of his life, and, with his wife and his youngest 
boy, Jesse, set forth, by steamer, " far countries 
for to see." 

Nellie, and Nellie's home in England was, 
of course, the first point to which they hastened, 
but, after a visit there started on a grand tour 
around the world. Everywhere honors were 
showered upon them, and I venture to say no 
American youth ever saw foreign lands under 
such delightful conditions as did Jesse Grant. 
Treated like a prince, he was often the guest of 
royal personages, among them the boy King of 
Spain and the young Mikado of Japan, and, 
with his father, he studied the customs and won- 
ders of the great mysterious East. He saw the 
Parsee sun worshippers of the Tower of Si- 
lence; he rode on an elephant to the sacred 
Ganges, and swung through the streets of Can- 
ton in a latticed bamboo chair. He climbed 
mountains, and sailed rivers; he touched " In- 
dia's coral strand," and I am sure he must have 
been among that crowd of spectators which 
gathered about the Yamen — the palace of the 
Viceroy of China — when that dignitary's wife 
entertained his mother and the American ladies 
of their party at dinner. Doors were wide open 
196 



The Young Grants 



so all could peer in and, if there, how he must 
have laughed at the Chinese Punch and Judy 
show; and, perhaps, admired the graceful nods 
and gestures of the Viceroy's daughter, a maiden 
of sixteen, gaily costumed in a bright pink satin 
jacket and green satin trousers, elaborately em- 
broidered with gold thread. 

It was a marvelous journey and it was a pity 
Ulysses, Jr., could not have shared it, also. 
But the second son was early on hand to wel- 
come them when they returned to their native 
land by way of the Golden Gate. 

At sixty years of age the General felt he had 
earned a rest, and, being " healthy, wealthy and 
wise," settled down to smoke his ever-present 
cigar, in a comfortable home in East Sixty-sixth 
Street, New York, with his children and grand- 
children around him, for now Nellie had two 
fresh-faced little English daughters to bring 
over to visit Grandpa and Grandma Grant. 
His money was largely invested in a banking 
business, of which one of his sons was a partner, 
and all looked well for a happy and peaceful old 
age. 

Never were prospects brighter than on Christ- 
mas Eve, 1883, when all were planning a merry 
Yule for the little folks. But, that very night, 
he slipped on the ice and injured a muscle so 
197 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

badly that he was confined within doors for 
weeks and was never a well man from that time. 

Most readers, too, know how, the following 
year, the failure of the banking firm swept away 
his fortune, leaving him and his family ruined, 
while the shadow of a slur cast for a brief sea- 
son upon his good name broke the ex-President 
down as nothing else could. 

It was a terrible blow to the man of honor, as 
well as of deeds, but looking into the saddened 
faces of his wife and children he rallied, and, 
although soon after attacked by a cruel and in- 
curable disease of the throat, bravely set to 
work to write the story of his life, that he might 
leave something for the support of his loved 
ones. 

An old proverb declares: "The pen is 
mightier than the sword," and it was certainly 
true in this case, for never did this hero of many 
battles fight a more valiant conflict than when 
he held Death at bay while he completed the 
book which was to place his family beyond the 
danger of want. 

Now it was that the White House girl, Julia 

Dent, was his " little comfort," and she went 

with him when in the summer of 1885 they 

took him from the hot city to a cozy cottage on 

198 



The Young Grants 



Mount McGregor, near Saratoga. There, in 
pain and anguish, he finished his " Memoirs," 
while one of the last acts of his life was the 
signing of a petition to some future President 
(whomever he might be), requesting an ap- 
pointment to West Point for his little curly- 
headed grandson, then in kilts, the child of his 
dear boy Fred. These two deeds accomplished, 
the tired hand dropped limply and, a few days 
later, the weary brain was at rest. 

Wife and children wept beside him, but the 
small granddaughter, with a young friend, 
crept outside and gathering oak leaves twined 
them into a garland. This she carried to her 
father, saying: 

" See, papa, Josie and I have made this for 
grandpa, and won't you please give it to him." 

Of all the magnificent floral offerings, then, 
which were sent to the hero-President, that sim- 
ple wreath of oak leaves was the only one borne 
on the casket to the gray tomb beside the softly 
flowing Hudson. 

An elaborate and massive mausoleum has long 
since replaced the plain stone pile that originally 
marked the old General's last resting place and 
his wife now sleeps beside him. 

When left a widow, Nellie returned to Amer- 
199 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

ica with her children; and his sons are all an 
honor to his name, while the Grant baby of the 
White House, Julia Dent, some years ago wed- 
ded a Russian of noble birth and makes her 
home beyond the seas, as a subject of the Czar. 



200 



CHAPTER XVII 

A " BUCKEYE " FAMILY 

IF Virginia proudly claims the title of 
" Mother of Presidents," Ohio might as 
justly be termed " The Father of Rul- 
ers," and particularly that portion of it known 
as the " Western Reserve." Virginia's sons 
represented the " Old School " American, the 
man of powdered hair, small clothes and courtly 
manners; while our Presidents from the Middle 
West have been wide-awake, self-made men, 
true products of vigorous, progressive Young 
America. 

The silent Grant was a native of Ohio, and 
so was Hayes. Yet, Rutherford B. Hayes was 
vastly proud of his Scotch ancestry, since he 
bore the name of two famous Highland chiefs, 
Hayes and Rutherford, who fought side by side 
with William Wallace and Robert Bruce. 

His family having moved in covered wagons 
out into the so-called " Wilderness," from 
New England, he was born there, a few months 
201 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

after his father's death, and was such a tiny 
babe, with so big a head, that when the neigh- 
bors came to look at him, they whispered to one 
another, " What a mercy it would be if that 
child were to die." 

But little Ruddy, as they called him, lived 
and thrived, through at first, in rather a sickly 
manner, to become the comfort of his sole par- 
ent's heart — especially after the sad drowning 
of an elder boy — and the dearest comrade of 
an only sister, who was two years his senior. 

Mrs. Hayes was in comfortable, if moderate, 
circumstances, having a two-story brick house in 
Delaware and deriving her income from a farm 
without the town. So Fanny and Ruddy were 
early sent to a district school, where they had 
for a teacher a thin, wiry little Yankee of terri- 
ble presence, if good enough heart. He would 
flog the boys within " an inch of their lives " ; at 
the same time threatening to throw them 
through the schoolhouse walls and make them 
" dance like parched peas." The Hayes chil- 
dren stood fearfully in awe of him and I fancy 
they learned more from their private readings 
than from Daniel Granger's instruction. We 
hear of them, then, at the age of ten and twelve, 
pouring over Hume and Smollett together; try- 
202 



A "Buckeye" Family 



ing to interpret Shakespeare, and even drama- 
tizing Scott's " Lady of the Lake." 

But it was not all work and no play, for fre- 
quent and delightful were the visits the brother 
and sister paid to the " Farm," in the maple 
sugar season; when cherries were ripe; at cider- 
making, and when Jack Frost opened the burrs 
on the walnut and hickory trees and brought 
the brown nuts showering down. 

At fourteen, however, young Rutherford had 
developed such bookish tendencies, that a kind 
bachelor uncle, Mr. Sardis Birchard, stepped 
forward and offered to help his nephew to a 
liberal education. His offer was gladly ac- 
cepted, and, after a few years at preparatory 
schools, he entered Kenyon College at Gam- 
bier, from which he was graduated valedictorian 
of his class and was long remembered with af- 
fection. As one of his college mates said: 

" Hayes had left a memory which was a fas- 
cination, a glowing memory. He was popular, 
magnanimous, manly; was a noble, chivalrous 
fellow of great promise." 

Following this up with a course at the Cam- 
bridge law school, he was, in the course of 
time, able to practise his chosen profession, first 
at Fremont and then in Cincinnati. 
203 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

It was during his college days, too, that he 
wrote out these resolutions : 

" ist. I will read no newspapers. 

" 2nd. I will rise at seven and retire at ten. 

" 3d. I will study law six hours, German 
two, and chemistry two. 

" 4th. In reading Blackstone, I will record 
my difficulties." 

And, it is probable, he carried them out, with 
the steadfastness of a strong character. 

Many years before this, when a mere lad, 
Rutherford paid a visit at Chillicothe and there 
met a pretty little girl of some eight or ten 
summers, the daughter of a Dr. Webb of that 
place. He found her interesting, but they 
never saw each other again until, one vacation, 
the budding lawyer and a young under-gradu- 
ate from the Wesley an Female College of Cin- 
cinnati chanced to meet at Delaware Sulphur 
Springs. Then, in bright, gray-eyed Lucy 
Ware Webb, he recognized the little maid of 
Chillicothe, and they became excellent friends, 
while, on his return to the city, at the close of 
his holiday, he wrote to an acquaintance: 
" My friend Jones has introduced me to many 
of our city belles, but I do not see anyone who 
makes me forget the natural gaiety and at- 
tractiveness of Miss Lucy." 
204 



A "Buckeye" Family 



From that time on, then, he became a fre- 
quent visitor at the Friday evening receptions 
held in the college parlors, and, two years later, 
the " sweet girl graduate " became his wife. 

They were married by Professor L. D. Mc- 
Cabe, the president of the bride's alma mater, 
their only attendant being a pretty child of 
eight years, the daughter of Mr. Hayes' dear 
sister Fanny, who was now Mrs. William Piatt. 

It was a true love-match and soon a bunch 
of babies filled the pleasant little home almost 
to overflowing, although two were snatched 
away in infancy. 

Of course the eldest boy was given the family 
name of Birchard, it being that of the generous 
uncle w r ho had been Mr. Hayes' good genius 
in his youth, and who, later, made him his heir, 
leaving him all his property at Fremont; while 
small Webb and Rutherford, Jr., were so called 
in honor of their mother and father. They 
were happy, whole-souled little fellows, and 
were still quite small shavers when the war 
broke out and their papa — now Major Hayes 
— went marching away at the head of a regi- 
ment of Ohio volunteers. 

Those were hard days for both mother and 
children, especially when word came that their 
gallant soldier was wounded, which he was four 
205 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

times, while a horse was shot under him in the 
fight at Cedar Creek, when " Sheridan was 
twenty miles away." But that battle promoted 
him from a Colonel to a Brigadier-General. 

There was, however, one bright spot in those 
years of carnage, and that was the autumn of 
1862, when the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteers 
went into winter quarters in West Virginia, near 
the falls of the Great Kanawha, and the Col- 
onel's wife, with three of her boys (there were 
now four living sons), went down to visit him. 
Other ladies joined their husbands in camp and 
it proved a right jolly season, the little Hayes, 
as well as their elders, having plenty of riding, 
fishing, boating and pleasure excursions of every 
sort. They became, veritably, the " children 
of the regiment," being petted and made much 
of by the soldiers, while they often accompanied 
their mother on her morning round through the 
hospital, where she came like a ministering an- 
gel, bringing aid and comfort to the sick and 
wounded. 

The men adored her and one thus wrote of 
that memorable winter: 

" Into our midst, sitting at our camp fire, put- 
ting new heart into many a homesick boy, ban- 
ishing the fever from many a bronzed 
cheek with her gentle touch, came this fair lady 
206 



A "Buckeye" Family 



and her boys. We named our camp in her 
honor, ' Camp Lucy Hayes,' and not a man in 
all those thousands but would have risked his 
life for her." 

The visit to the encampment was repeated the 
following summer, but proved a far sadder one, 
as then the youngest boy — the baby — sick- 
ened and died within the sound of the Great 
Kanawha. 

All those rough soldiers mourned with the 
" Mother of Our's," and the little brothers who 
were left, and none, perhaps, more than one 
beardless boy-sergeant of sixteen or seventeen, 
who was devoted to his Colonel. Mr. Hayes, 
likewise, was strangely attracted by this sober- 
faced but keen-witted lad, so much so that he 
had him placed on his staff, and, afterward, 
said: "I did literally and in fact know him 
like a book, and loved him like a brother." 

It was a beautiful friendship, and more so, in 
the light of later events, since the kindly Col- 
onel was destined to be the nineteenth President 
of the United States, and the soldier-boy — lit- 
tle William McKinley — the twenty-fifth. 

The war over, honors showered thick and 
fast upon General Hayes, he being twice made 
Congressman, and thrice Governor of his na- 
tive State; so his boys saw much of public life, 
207 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

before going to Cornell, where most of them 
were graduated. Their house, too, was a regu- 
lar soldiers' home, all who had served with their 
father being welcome to come at all hours and 
sit at their board. It is said few imposed upon 
this hospitality, but once, a pseudo-soldier, 
dubbed by the children the " Veteran," having 
served just two days and a half in the army, re- 
mained double the term of his military career, 
beneath the Governor's roof. 

He evidently found the rations at that camp 
particularly to his taste. 

One September day, too, to the joy of all, a 
wee girlie made her advent into the household, 
and was named for the aunt, who was now only 
a charming memory — the Fanny Hayes of the 
old Delaware days. 

Mrs. Piatt died in early womanhood, but 
Mr. Hayes paid her this beautiful tribute. 
" She loved me," he said, " as an only sister 
loves a brother whom she imagines almost per- 
fect; and I loved her as an only brother loves a 
sister who is perfect. Let me be just and truth- 
ful, wise and pure and good for her sake. 
How often I think of her ! I read of the death 
of any one worthy of love and she is in my 
thoughts. I see — but all things high and holy 
remind me of her." 

208 



A "Buckeye" Family 



Perhaps Fanny Hayes the Second had some- 
what the same feeling for small Scott Russell, 
the baby boy who, three or four years later, 
completed this " Buckeye " family. 

And these two, aged ten and seven, were the 
" children of the White House " when Mr. 
Hayes was made President; while Webb acted 
as his father's confidential secretary, as Birch- 
ard was now a practising lawyer and Ruther- 
ford, Jr., away at school. 

" General, if I had a slipper, I'd throw it 
after you," Mr. Hayes called out, laughingly, 
to *ex-President and Mrs. Grant, as they drove 
away after the inauguration — an inauguration 
which had been a very joyous occasion to the 
wife and little ones, and it is thus that Mary 
Clemmer, a well-known literary woman of 
Washington, then wrote of the new mistress of 
the Executive Mansion: 

" Meanwhile, on this man of whom every 
one in the nation is this moment thinking, a fair 
woman, between two little children, looks down. 
She has a singularly gentle and winning face. 
It looks out from the bands of smooth, dark 
hair with that tender light in the eyes which we 
have come to associate with the Madonna. I 
have never seen such a face reign in the White 
House. I wonder what the world of Vanity 
209 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

Fair will do with it! Will it friz that hair? 
Powder that face? Draw those sweet, fine 
lines awry with pride? Bare those shoulders? 
Shorten those sleeves? Hide John Wesley's 
discipline out of sight, as it poses and minces be- 
fore the first lady of the land? What will she 
do with it, this woman of the hearth and home? 
The Lord in heaven knows. All I 
know is that Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, are the fin- 
est-looking type of man and woman that I have 
seen take up their abode in the White House." 

A month later, Mrs. Hayes held her first 
Saturday afternoon reception, looking like a pic- 
ture in a princesse gown of black silk, the 
plainness of which was relieved by exquisite 
point-lace; her mobile countenance radiant with 
delight and her eyes shining like stars. 

By her side was little Miss Fanny, in a sim- 
ple frock of white muslin, pink sash and pink 
boots, her short hair brushed back from her 
bright, intelligent face, and very well she as- 
sumed her part, with natural, childlike grace. 

When, too, most of the guests had drifted 
away, leaving only a few friends, she consented 
to sing for a gentleman present, a song which he 
must " be sure and remember for his little girl 
at home. Then, seating herself at the grand 
piano in the Red Room and removing her tiny 
210 



A "Buckeye" Family 



white gloves, she played and sang this old nur- 
sery ditty: 

" Once there was a little kitty- 
Whiter than snow, 
In the barn she used to frolic, 
A long time ago. 

And there was a little mousey, 

Running to and fro. 
And the kitty spied the mousey, 

A long time ago. 

Two soft paws had little kitty, 

Softer than dough. 
And they caught the little mousey, 

A long time ago. 

Nine sharp teeth had little kitty 

All in a row ; 
And they bit the little mousey, 

A long time ago. 

When the teeth bit little mousey, 

The little mouse said ' Oh ! ' 
But she got away from kitty-, 

A long time ago." 

" Now you remember it," she lisped, as she 
kissed her friend " good night." 

Small Scott was a mischievous elf, up to many 

21 I 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

a prank, but he was so kind-hearted, withal, 
that he could not bear to shoot even a squirrel. 
He dearly loved, though, a romp with " fa- 
ther," for, no matter how much immersed in af- 
fairs of state, Mr. Hayes generally found some 
time each day for a chat or game with his 
younger children. 

A devout Methodist and strict temperance 
woman, Mrs. Hayes came to Washington de- 
termined not to offer wine to guests at the Ex- 
ecutive Mansion. This created quite a furore, 
becoming, I believe, even a Cabinet question. 
For a year, she was a target for all sorts of 
spiteful arrows, being even stigmatized as 
" Lemonade Lucy " ; but, true to her principles 
and upheld by her husband, she stuck to her col- 
ors, and finally, with sweet patience and tact, 
conquered Mrs. Grundy, on her own ground, 
and won for herself the respect of all the na- 
tion. 

On only one occasion, then, was wine seen on 
the White House table during this administra- 
tion, and that was at a dinner given to the 
Grand Duke Alexis, when Secretary Evarts was 
really the official host. 

Most hospitable, though, was this good 
woman, and dearly did she love to fill the big 
mansion with young girls, once giving an elab- 
212 



A "Buckeye" Family 



orate luncheon to fifty of them, in honor of 
eight maiden guests; as well as fancy dress balls 
and other social affairs. 

One of these youthful visitors, who spent sev- 
eral months with the Hayes family, was a Cin- 
cinnati girl of " sweet sixteen," and so delightful 
did she find her sojourn under the national 
roof, that on her return home, she confided to 
her bosom friends that it was her intention only 
to marry " a man destined to be President of the 
United States." 

Curiously enough, too, like Mrs. Lincoln, she 
carried out her purpose, for Mrs. Hayes' en- 
thusiastic guest was Helen Herron, who, as 
Mrs. William Taft, on the fourth of March 
last, became the " first lady of the land." 

The picture, though, which stands out bright- 
est on this page of domestic White House his- 
tory, is the last day but one of the year 1877. 

The boys were all at home for the Christmas 
holidays, and, in the pretty Blue Room, the 
President and his gracious helpmeet celebrated 
their silver wedding, she appearing in the self- 
same quaint gown and white satin slippers — 
cream-laid with age — which had been worn by 
the bride of twenty-five years before. The 
company was, as far as possible, the same who 
attended the wedding in 1852; Mrs. Mitchell, 
213 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

the President's niece, and she who, as a tiny girl 
had been the little bridesmaid of the first cere- 
mony, stood beside them; and there, surrounded 
by their children and dear and tried friends, 
they again received the pastoral blessing of the 
Rev. Dr. McCabe, who had married them so 
many years ago. 

This was followed by the christening of an 
infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Herron, who 
was given the name of Lucy Webb; while after- 
ward little Fanny and Scott Russell were bap- 
tized, and all concluded with a sumptuous din- 
ner. 

The President had sternly set his face against 
receiving any gifts on this occasion, but one to 
Mrs. Hayes could not be declined. It came 
from the officers of the Twenty-third Ohio Vol- 
unteer Infantry and consisted of a silver plate 
imbedded in a mat of black velvet and enclosed 
in a rich ebony frame. 

It was sent " To the Mother of the Regi- 
ment," and on the plate appeared a sketch of 
the log hut that was Colonel Hayes' headquar- 
ters in the valley of the Kanawha, surmounted 
by tattered and torn battle flags, while below 
was this inscription : 

" To Thee, ' Mother of Ours,' from the 
23rd O. V. I. To Thee, our Mother, on thy 
214 



A "Buckeye" Family 



silver troth, we bring this token of our love. 
The boys give greeting unto thee with burning 
hearts. Take the hoarded treasures of thy 
speech, kind words, gentle when a gentle word 
was worth the surgery of an hundred schools to 
heal sick thought and make our bruises whole. 
Take it, our Mother; 'tis but some small part 
of thy rare beauty we give back to thee, and 
while love speaks in silver, from our hearts 
we'll bribe Old Father Time to spare his gift." 

Do you not think her sons, when they read 
these glowing words, must have felt prouder 
than ever of the noble woman they, too, called 
"mother"? 

Another pleasant event was the coming of 
age of young Webb, which was appropriately 
celebrated at the White House. 

So, the closing months of this regime were 
marked by much cordiality and national good 
feeling, while Mrs. Hayes, with her band of 
bright children, left the mansion most highly 
honored by her own sex. Indeed, her portrait, 
a beautiful life-size painting by Huntington, 
was presented to the United States by the tem- 
perance people, who felt that her course de- 
served some marked tribute. 

On the way back to Ohio, they were in quite 
a serious railroad accident, when two people 
215 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

were killed, but fortunately all the ex-Presi- 
dent's party escaped unhurt, and they were en- 
thusiastically welcomed back to Fremont, with 
music, banners and speeches. 

At " Spiegel Grove," then, the beautiful 
house standing in the centre of thirty acres of 
woodland, which had been built by " Uncle 
Sardis," and bequeathed to Mr. Hayes, they 
took up the threads of private life again, and 
Fanny was sent away to school at Farmington, 
Connecticut. 

She had, however, returned home to enjoy a 
blithe young ladyhood ere the mother of the 
family was called up higher, and it was in the 
pleasant brick residence at Fremont she was mar- 
ried to Harry Eaton Smith, then an ensign in 
the U. S. Navy, but now an instructor at the 
Naval Academy in Annapolis, where she lives 
most of the year and has one little son of her 
own. 

Ex-President Hayes survived his wife a few 
years, but when stricken with heart trouble, 
while visiting his boy Webb, at Cleveland, im- 
mediately exclaimed: "I want to go home. 
I would rather die in Spiegel Grove than live 
anywhere else." 

He had his wish, and in that loved spot 
216 



A "Buckeye" Family 



passed away, his last words being: " I know I 
am going where Lucy is." 

To-day, Birchard Austin, practising his pro- 
fession at Toledo, Ohio; Rutherford Piatt, in 
business in North Carolina, and Scott Russell, in 
New York, are all worthy sons of their illustri- 
ous parents, while Webb is the one Hayes boy 
who still makes his home at the old place at 
Spiegel Grove. 



217 



E 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE GARFIELD CHILDREN 

££~|~^LIZA, I have planted four saplings 
in these woods. I leave them to 
your care." 

These were the dying words of poor Abram 
Garfield, as he pointed to the quartette of young 
children he was about to leave. Then, with 
one long, lingering look over his little farm 
and calling his oxen by name, he fell back un- 
conscious, and, two days later, was laid to rest 
in a corner of his own wheat field, way out in 
the " wilderness " of Western Ohio. 

Thus left unprotected, with two small girls, 
a boy of seven and a baby of eighteen months, 
the widow's one idea was to keep the family 
together and the roof of the rude log cabin 
over their heads. 

With this end in view, then, she toiled from 
sunrise to sunset, not only performing her 
household tasks, but gathering in the hay, plant- 
218 



The Garfield Children 

ing and reaping corn and clearing new land and 
fencing it in; with little assistance except that 
rendered by small Mehetable, Thomas and 
Mary. 

In fruit season they reveled in berries and 
home-grown cherries, apples and plums, but at 
other times there was cornmeal pudding or por- 
ridge for breakfast, dinner and supper, while 
if the meal ran low in the chest, they often 
went to bed hungry. 

Still the young " saplings " thrived and flour- 
ished and little fair, blue-eyed James Abram, 
the youngest, seems to have been the pet and 
joy of the humble household and learned to 
read and spell at such an early age, he was 
sent to the district school the summer after he 
was four years old. When cold weather set in, 
however, and the snow fell, he had to stay at 
home, because he had no shoes and there was 
no money to buy them. 

Then, ten-year-old Thomas stepped to the 
front. " I will go out to work this winter, 
mother," he said. 

So he hired himself to a farmer and went 
away, the bitterest parting being from the little 
brother whom he loved like his own life. 

Fourteen hours a day brave young Tommy 
219 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

labored, and, at last, one Saturday night re- 
turned home in triumph, bringing six dollars 
and a half — the wages he had earned. 

" You may have it all, mother," he cried, 
" only buy Jimmy a pair of shoes so that he 
can go to school." 

So it was plain, steady Thomas Garfield who 
first set the feet of our twentieth President in 
the rugged path leading up the " hill of knowl- 
edge," and here it should also be recorded that 
he was ever the most devoted of brothers, re- 
fusing to marry until James' education was fin- 
ished. 

Supplied with shoes " Baby " Garfield then 
became once more a pupil at the schoolhouse 
erected on a portion of his mother's farm, and 
a most uneasy scholar he proved, pestering the 
teacher nearly out of her wits in her efforts to 
keep him still. At length, she complained to 
his mother, and Master Jimmy had such a 
heartrending " talking-to," he went the next 
day determined to " sit as still as ever he 
could." He must, too, have succeeded pretty 
well, since at the close of his first term, he was 
given a New Testament for being the best boy 
in the school. 

It was, probably, studying this volume which 
made him so familiar with the Scriptures in 
220 



The Garfield Children 

after-years. But he also read every other book 
he could lay his hands on, and a certain Cousin 
Harriet and himself were so fascinated with a 
collection of lurid sea-tales, entitled " The 
Pirates' Own Book," that he became inspired 
with a wild desire to be a sailor and " sail the 
ocean blue." 

The nearest he ever came to this, however, 
was working on the " raging canal," being en- 
gaged by another cousin to drive horses on the 
towpath, for ten dollar a month and his board. 

But before this, " Jim Gaffield," as he was 
called on the Western Reserve, had proved no 
laggard on the farm, but had dug and hoed and 
chopped wood like a Trojan, besides being 
quite a good carpenter; while, when a narrow 
escape from drowning sent him back home, and 
a severe attack of " ague " kept him in his 
mother's care for some months, she prevailed 
upon him to return to his studies and fit himself 
for a teacher. For Mother Garfield always 
had faith in her baby boy's cleverness, and 
longed to see him rise in the world. 

At seventeen, then, James started out to 
fairly " scrabble " for an education, working 
his way through the Geauga Seminary at Ches- 
ter; then through a newly organized institution 
of learning at Hiram, and finally reached Wil- 
221 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

liams College, which he entered in the junior 
year. 

In his vacation he generally taught school, 
and one winter holiday saw him giving writing 
lessons at North Pownal, Vermont. There he 
heard a good deal about another young college 
student from New York who, the year previous, 
had been the master of the school where he 
held his classes. Never, though, could he have 
dreamed of the way he was to meet and know 
that man a quarter of a century later, nor how 
intimately their life lines were to mingle, for 
that Vermont teacher was Chester A. Arthur. 

While at Chester he had joined the Church 
of the Disciples, or Campbellites, being bap- 
tized in a little stream flowing into the Chagrin 
River, and, all through his college course he 
took an active part in prayer meetings and re- 
ligious gatherings, while he frequently traveled 
about the country as an " exhorter," preaching 
and lecturing wherever he found an oppor- 
tunity. 

At that time, too, another and much younger 
scholar at the Geauga Seminary, was a sweet- 
faced little girl from Maryland who, becoming 
well acquainted with James Garfield, imbibed 
from him a taste for books, and when, later, 
he filled for a time the place of a tutor at 

222 



The Garfield Children 



Hiram College, this same studious Lucretia Ru- 
dolph came into his classroom and was his pu- 
pil in Latin for two years. 

But he taught her something else besides a 
dead language, and that was the very living 
language of love; so, before the young man 
went to Williams, they were engaged to be mar- 
ried. 

As their betrothal promised to be a long one, 
she took up teaching, as well as he, and long 
after, a leading citizen of Bayou, Ohio, re- 
called this picture of the youthful pair as they 
then appeared: 

" Twenty-three years ago Mrs. Garfield 
sought and taught scholars in painting and 
drawing in this then very insignificant village, 
and not getting very large classes, living mean- 
time in my house, the guest and friend of my 
then wife. The future President was fre- 
quently entertained at my table; he, a young, 
strong, green, great-hearted, large-headed 
youth, but two years from college, hopeful, full 
of life and push. She, graceful, sweet, amiable, 
retiring, with a disposition as lovely as a star- 
lit sky — both poor. Their fortune was their 
youth, health, hearts, intellects, hopes, and, glad 
am I to say, love." 

At this period James was, again, a teacher 
223 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

in the Eclectic Institute at Hiram, which was 
founded by the " Disciples," and when made 
President of this very college where he had 
formerly swept the floors, built the fires and 
rung the bell, he and Miss Rudolph were mar- 
ried. 

Still, Garfield's ambitions were for a wider 
career, so, like Hayes, he studied law and also, 
like him, responded to the first call to arms, 
serving in the war for three years, where he was 
known as the " preacher soldier," while he only 
left the field of conflict to enter Congress. 

Before this, however, a wee girl baby had 
been born to the young couple and their first 
sorrow was the loss of this infant. 

It was right after the battle of Chickamauga, 
where the father won his Major-General stars, 
that he heard the sad news and hurried home 
to console his wife. He was photographed 
holding his little daughter pressed to his 
breast, and, afterward, speaking to a friend of 
this circumstance, said: 

" As I sat with that dead child in my arms 
my eyes rested upon my bright blue uniform, 
so recently bestowed upon me, and I thought: 
'How small are all the honors of this life — 
how insignificant are all its struggles and tri- 
umphs ! ' I am grieved and broken in spirit at 
224 



The Garfield Children 



the great loss which has been inflicted upon me, 
but I can endure almost anything, so long as 
this brave little woman is left to me." 

As a Congressman, he was richer than ever 
before, and then was purchased " Lawnfield," 
the stock farm near Mentor, which has now 
become historic ground and where a gay flock 
of little folk was soon growing up and being 
early instructed by their gentle, but brainy, 
mother, who was still no mean Greek and Latin 
scholar, and quite able to fit her boys for col- 
lege. 

There was Harry Augustus, a tall, well-built 
young fellow, with a taste for painting, poetry 
and music. He wielded the brush with consider- 
able cleverness, besides spending hours at the 
piano, and it was his sweet voice which soared 
highest when they sang General Garfield's fa- 
vorite hymn — "Ho, Reapers of Life's Har- 
vest." 

A decided contrast to his brother was James 
Rudolph, with his fair hair, sturdy build and 
devotion to outdoor sports. He was, too, a 
leader in his classes when both lads were sent to 
St. Paul's School at Concord, N. H., although 
it was Harry who won the prize for the best 
English declamation. 

Next came Mary or " Mollie," as everybody 
225 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

called her, a rosy-cheeked girl, with eyes " over- 
running with laughter"; while shrewd, keen- 
witted Irvin McDowell and little Abram — 
named for his pioneer grandfather — formed a 
regular " team " of young athletes and were 
prime movers in all boyish games. These last 
were small chaps in knickerbockers when their 
father was elected President, but before that, 
had spent many winters in Washington. 

The family circle was completed by " Grand- 
ma Garfield," who now made her home with 
her youngest and best-loved child, enjoying a 
peaceful and honored old age. 

It was at Lawnfield that General Garfield 
spent his happiest days, when, free from state 
duties, he could ride over his farm and work 
in the hay-field with his sons. He was always 
interested in his children's studies, but remem- 
bering his own early struggles once remarked 
to a gentleman who interviewed him after his 
nomination : 

" Tell me, now, do you think we can raise 
men for high positions? There are my boys; 
I am educating them carefully, but I can't tell 
if they will ever be heard of, and I question it. 
. . . Won't it happen that some poor and 
obscure little fellow, who has to scratch for 
every inch, will run ahead of them and come 
226 



The Garfield Children 

to the front, while they will pass away un- 
known to fame? " 

" That is nearly always the case," said the 
visitor. 

" So it is; and it makes me wonder if tender 
rearing of boys, and giving them an elaborate 
education, is so much of a benefit to them, after 
all." 

This is a pleasant family picture and it is 
sad to think that in a neighboring western state, 
a boy had grown into manhood who was to 
bring grief and desolation to the happy house- 
hold. 

The son of a respected citizen of Freeport, 
Illinois, Charles Jules Guiteau, had been 
brought up in a decidedly " pious " manner, the 
father always having a Bible beside him at the 
breakfast table, and reading from it before be- 
ginning the meal. Indeed, the young man him- 
self was a sort of religious fanatic, and, having 
spent his early life in the Oneida Community, 
was considered " queer," by his companions, 
who were wont to say : " Oh, Jules is 
' looney ' ! " His eccentricities, too, increased 
when, after studying law, he traveled in Europe 
and there imbibed Socialistic and other peculiar 
doctrines until, at length, by one dastardly and 
most unnecessary act, he put a whole nation 
227 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

in mourning and brought disgrace upon his 
gray-haired father and a blithe and bright young 
sister. But more of that hereafter. 

The first inauguration the writer of this ever 
witnessed was that of President Garfield, and, 
I believe, it was the finest Washington had 
then ever known. The day was ushered in by 
snow and wind, but at an early hour the sun 
struggled through the clouds, and, although the 
streets were ankle deep with slush, ice and 
water, Pennsylvania Avenue bloomed out like 
a flower garden with gay-hued flags and ban- 
ners, and was thronged by an enormous crowd. 
As we looked down from an upper window, it 
seemed verily " a sea of faces " beneath a wall 
of waving bunting. 

The procession was two hours in passing, and, 
in an open carriage, drawn by four horses, rode 
President Hayes and President-elect Garfield, 
vis-a-vis with the two Vice-Presidents, Wheeler 
and Arthur, bowing right and left to the people. 
It was then and there, too, that the lives of 
the one-time Vermont school teachers touched 
and crossed for weal or for woe. 

Around the Capitol the crowd was densest 

and ten thousand pairs of eyes were riveted 

upon the platform at the east portico when, 

at the hour of noon, the newly-elected ruler ap- 

228 



The Garfield Children 

peared to deliver his inaugural address, while 
conspicuous among those behind him was a tiny, 
white-haired woman of nearly fourscore, in 
widow's weeds — dear old " Grandma " Gar- 
field, come to witness the culmination of all her 
hopes and prayers for her youngest " sapling." 
With her were the wives of the out-going and. 
in-coming Presidents, the two older Garfield 
boys, and bonny Miss Mollie, hand-in-hand with 
Fanny Hayes. 

A thrill, too, of that sympathy which 
" makes the whole world kin," ran through 
the vast concourse when, having taken the oath 
of office, President Garfield turned and kissed 
his mother and then his wife. 

The enthusiasm of one young schoolgirl was 
unbounded. 

" Oh, it was done for effect," remarked her 
companion teasingly. 

" No," she cried, her cheeks flushing and 
eyes sparkling. " It was done because he is a 
knight — a real Sir Galahad! " 

The little mother was, also, the first one to 
welcome her son to the White House, having 
preceded him thither, and the gala day con- 
cluded with fireworks and a grand inauguration 
ball in the evening, although the expected il- 
lumination of the city was something of a fizzle. 
229 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

The five Garfield children attracted much at- 
tention that spring of 1881, but Harry and 
James had to return to their school for some 
months, as they were just completing their 
course there and were prepared to enter college 
in t;he fall. They were, though, for a short 
time all together and a Washington corre- 
spondent has given us this pen-portrait of a meal 
in the Homestead of the Nation: 

" In the cosy family dining-room the Presi- 
dent's seat is midway the length of the table on 
its west side, and Mrs. Garfield sits opposite, 
with Harry, her eldest, a decided ' mother boy,' 
as near her as the presence of almost constant 
guests will permit, while Jimmie sits corre- 
spondingly near his father, where also ' Grand- 
ma ' Garfield has an honored place. She is 
always waited on first, whoever else may be 
present. Mollie sits at the north end of the 
table, and the two younger boys are disposed 
a little promiscuously, according to the exi- 
gencies of the case. Harry is eighteen, tall and 
graceful, with the regular features of his 
mother. The down of manhood appears on 
his cheeks. Jimmie, sixteen years old, is nearly 
or quite as tall as his brother and broader 
shouldered, with the Saxon hair and large fea- 
tures of his father, whom he bids fair to re- 
230 



The Garfield Children 

semble strongly in person and intellect. Mol- 
lie, aged fourteen, has the dark-brown hair of 
her mother and the lineaments of her father 
not unhandsomely reproduced. When woman- 
hood has softened the charm of heir face she 
will be very fine-looking. She is a great pet 
with her father. Irvin, aged eleven, and 
Abram, aged nine, you already know through 
descriptions, especially the former, who is the 
eccentric one, possibly the genius of them all. 
He is named for General McDowell, and in- 
sists that his name must be always written, not 
Irvin M., but Irvin McD. Mealtime is al- 
most the only time the President has lately had 
with his children, and he devotes himself in 
great part to them at that time, often asking 
questions, on some interesting point, of Harry 
or James or Mollie to draw them out, and then 
explaining it at considerable length, instructing 
by the Socratic method as it were." 

This had always been a custom in the house 
of Garfield, for the father having a natural gift 
for teaching, made his family like a school, and' 
invented instructive games. For instance, he 
would spell from a dictionary words which are 
frequently mispronounced and then ask the chil- 
dren, in turn, to give the correct pronunciation; 
or else he read the definitions while the young 
231 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

folks endeavored to hit upon the exact word 
defined. If they came near the right word he 
encouraged them by saying: "Now you are 
getting warm; " but, if wide of the mark, called 
out: "Cold!" or "very cold!" All the 
family enjoyed this exceedingly. 

The first three months, then, were very pleas- 
ant ones within the Executive Mansion, the 
chief vexation being the horde of office seekers 
which besieged the house and, among these, ap- 
peared the " looney Jules," from Freeport. He 
desired a consulship at Marseilles and, one day, 
having obtained access to the Head of the Na- 
tion, behaved so rudely that the attendants were 
obliged to remove him by force. It was prob- 
ably, then, the murderous microbe first found 
lodgment in his half-crazed brain. 

The intense heat of a Washington June found 
Mrs. Garfield suffering from a rather sharp at- 
tack of malaria; so, taking Mollie with her, she 
fled away to the fresher air of Long Branch; 
while small Irvin and Abram accompanied 
Grandma back to Ohio for the summer. 

By the first of July, then, only the two sons, 
fresh from their Concord school, were with the 
President in Washington, and he was planning 
to attend the Commencement at his alma mater, 
W T illiams College, and afterward enjoy a pleas- 
232 



The Garfield Children 

ure trip through New England with his wife 
and three oldest children. 

He was in the best of spirits, when, on the 
morning of the second, as he was dressing, 
Harry came into his room and, deftly turning a 
hand-spring across the bed, laughingly asked: 
" Don't you wish you could do that? " 

" Well, I think I can," replied his father, 
and, in another moment, he was on his hands 
and over the bed almost as nimbly as the youth- 
ful athlete. 

Breakfast over, he bade Harry and Jimmie 
" good-bye " and rode off with Secretary of 
State Blaine to the depot of the Baltimore & 
Potomac Railroad, and it was there he received 
the fatal shot which resulted in weeks of suf- 
fering and final death. 

Charles Jules Guiteau was walking up and 
down, nervously awaiting the coming of his vic- 
tim, and as he entered, drew forth a revolver, 
took steady and deliberate aim, fired twice and 
fled. 

There was no outcry, but, with one surprised 
look to see from whence came the murderous 
bullet, the President sank to the ground; his 
life blood spurted forth and friends and stran- 
gers gathered round in horror. 

Excitement ran riot, but when very gently 
233 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

lifted onto a mattress, he turned to a gentleman 
near at hand and whispered: " Rockwell, I 
want you to send a message to ' Crete '." (His 
pet name for his wife, Lucretia.) " Tell her 
I am seriously hurt, how seriously I cannot yet 
say. I am myself, and hope she will come to 
me soon. I send my love to her." 

What news this was to be flashed over the 
wires to the loving wife nd daughter at the sea- 
shore! and it must have been still more of a 
shock to the boys in the White House whom he 
had left less than half an hour before. 

Harry flew to him at once and rode home 
with him in the ambulance, holding his hand; 
but he kept up good courage, and it was he 
who sent this telegram to the little grand- 
mother in the West: 

"July 2nd, 1 88 1. 
" To Mrs. Eliza Garfield, Solon, Ohio: 

" Don't be alarmed by sensational rumors ; 
doctor thinks it will not be fatal. Don't think 
of coming until you hear further. 

" Harry A. Garfield." 

James, however, broke down completely and 
sobbed aloud beside his father's bed. At this, 
the President tried to comfort him. 
234 



The Garfield Children 

" Don't be alarmed, Jimmie," he said, " the 
upper story is all right; it is only the hull that 
is a little damaged." 

As quickly as special train could bring them, 
Mrs. Garfield and Mollie sped back to the Cap- 
ital and arrived to find the husband and father, 
apparently, breathing his last; but he rallied, as 
we all know, and lingered for many, many days, 
while " all the world wondered." Some, too, 
recalled the brief address which the invalid had 
made at New York when President Lincoln 
was stricken down, in much the same manner. 
His few words then were: 

" Fellow-citizens, clouds and darkness are 
around Him; His pavilion is dark waters and 
thick clouds; justice and judgment are the es- 
tablishment of His throne; mercy and truth 
shall go before His face. Fellow-citizens, God 
reigns and the Government at Washington still 
lives." 

For a time he really seemed on the road to 
convalescence, even during the heat of a most 
sultry August. But an unfavorable change set 
in. 

At length, it was decided to try the beneficial 
effects of sea air and salt water, and, on Sep- 
tember sixth, he was removed to Mr. C. G. 
235 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

Franklyn's pretty cottage at Elberon, within a 
hundred yards of the white-crested ocean he 
had always loved. 

We will not linger over these last harrowing 
days, when hope slowly died out in Mrs. Gar- 
field's heart and the only daughter wandered 
sorrowfully up and down the beach with her 
young friend, little Miss Rockwell. 

The two girls were sitting on the sand, on 
the morning of the nineteenth, when Don Rock- 
well came to tell Mollie that the President 
wished to see her. 

Alarmed, but forcing a smile to her lips, the 
child entered the sick-room, kissed her father 
and told him she was glad to see him looking 
so much better. 

"You think I do look better, Mollie?" he 
asked. 

" Yes, I do, papa," she replied as she quietly 
took a seat near the foot of the couch. 

A few moments after, however, she gasped, 
swayed and fell to the floor in a dead faint. 
Quickly Dr. Boynton sprang to lift her up and 
carry her into the outer air, and there she soon 
revived, although blood flowed freely from a 
cut, caused by striking against the bed-post. 

It was thought that the invalid had not no- 
236 



The Garfield Children 



ticed his pet daughter's indisposition, having, 
apparently, relapsed into the stupor in which he 
lay most of the time; but when the doctor re- 
entered the apartment, he roused and said: 

" Poor little Mollie ! She fell over like a 
log. What was the matter? " 

When assured it was only a short swoon, 
caused by the closeness of the sick-chamber, he 
seemed satisfied and dropped off to sleep. But 
that very night — the evening of September 
19th, 1 88 1 — there was, again, a hasty sum- 
mons, not only for Mollie, but for all the house- 
hold, while, shortly after they had gathered 
around the bedside, the end came and James 
Abram Garfield's sufferings were over, he having 
been President just two hundred days. 

Sad, sad news for all the nation; sadder still 
for the two boys at Williamstown, where the 
younger lay ill of malarial fever; and, perhaps, 
saddest of all, coming to the aged mother, on 
the eve of her eightieth birthday, in her daugh- 
ter's home at Solon, Ohio. 

Many can remember and all have heard of 
the honors paid to the slain chief-magistrate, 
and how every city, town and hamlet displayed 
a mass of black and white decorations, through- 
out the entire country. 

237 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

bia mourned her son," publicly and in the eyes 
of all the world, ere he was left to his long 
last sleep in the mausoleum at Cleveland. 

Conspicuous among the floral tributes laid 
upon the casket, was a great wreath of white 
rosebuds bearing a card with this inscription : 
" Queen Victoria to the memory of the late 
President Garfield, an expression of her sorrow 
and sympathy with Mrs. Garfield and the Amer- 
ican nation"; and, undoubtedly some of these 
buds were among the flowers which the widow, 
Mollie and Harry carried away, after taking 
their last " farewell," in the rotunda of the 
Capitol at Washington. Twenty years later, 
too, a wreath from Mrs. Garfield was placed 
upon the bier of England's Queen. 

Charles Jules Guiteau paid the penalty of his 
crime with his life; but that could not return 
the affectionate husband and father to the fam- 
ily of loved ones who now made their home in 
Cleveland, Mollie being placed at a private 
school. 

Harry and James being in college, the 
younger boys were, then, the mother's chief 
care and most carefully she guarded and in- 
structed them, preparing them to follow in their 
brothers' footsteps at Williams, from which in- 
stitute all four were eventually graduated. 
238 



The Garfield Children 



It was thought the little folks were entirely 
ignorant of all the public notice they had at- 
tracted, but when, one day, Mrs. Garfield had 
been obliged to correct Irvin quite severely, he 
astonished her by repeating, word for word, an 
extract from an Eastern paper, in which he was 
made to appear a very prodigy of juvenile per- 
fection. 

Receiving a pension from the Government 
Mrs. Garfield still lives in ease and comfort, 
while her daughter is happily married. She di- 
vides her time between the old place of pleasant 
memories at Mentor, Washington, and Pasa- 
dena, California, where she has an ideal sum- 
mer home. 

After completing his education in England, 
Harry was for some years Professor of Politics 
at Princeton University. Quite recently, how- 
ever, he was offered and accepted the presi- 
dency of Williams College, and is now head of 
the institution which has been the alma mater 
of all his family. 

Meanwhile, James Rudolph, having turned 
his attention to politics, advanced step by step, 
until he became a member of President Roose- 
velt's Cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. 

Irvin and Abram, also, are prominent men 
of affairs and all bid fair to carry out General 
Garfield's ambitious wishes for his boys. 
239 



CHAPTER XIX 

NELLIE ARTHUR AND HER BROTHER 

ONE September day, in the year of our 
Lord 1857, a somewhat battered and 
wave-worn steamer started out from 
the port of Havana, crowded with passengers, 
most of whom were homeward bound from 
the gold fields of California, carrying with 
them nearly two million dollars worth of the 
precious metal. 

" Central America " was the name of the 
craft, and she was commanded by a naval offi- 
ficer, William Lewis Herndon, a Virginian, 
who had won a name for himself, by leading 
an expedition for the exploration of the river 
Amazon and bringing back most valuable in- 
formation. 

A gallant captain was he, but his bark was 
sadly unseaworthy and in no condition to stand 
rough weather. Therefore, when three days 
out, a fierce cyclone swooped down upon them, 
she soon sprung a leak, while the sea ran so 
240 



Nellie Arthur and Her Brother 

high that her fires were quickly extinguished. 

Helplessly the vessel tossed at the mercy of 
wind and waves and all on deck was panic and 
confusion. Commander Herndon, alone, re- 
mained calm. Managing to signal a small 
brig, he had all the women and children trans- 
ferred to her in boats and sent his watch to his 
wife with the message that " he could not leave 
the steamer while there was a soul on board." 
Then, although some of the men were picked up 
by passing crafts, he, with many others, went 
down with his ship, serenely smoking a cigar as 
they sank into the watery depths. 

He left a brave memory behind him and a 
monument to him may be seen at the Naval 
Academy in Annapolis; but he was sadly 
mourned, not only by his widow, but by a fair, 
young daughter, in a pleasant home of the 
sunny South. 

Bright, vivacious Ellen Lewis Herndon, with 
the voice of a nightingale, was this Virginia 
girl, but, in the course of a year or two, she 
was consoled by a handsome Northerner, from 
New York — the man of whom we have heard 
before as the predecessor of Garfield in the 
primitive New England school — Chester A. 
Arthur. A fine specimen of manhood was he, 
tall and well-built, with dignified though genial 
241 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

manners which he probably inherited from his 
Irish father, who was a Baptist clergyman first 
of the Green Mountain State, but later in Man- 
hattan. 

Wooing and wedding his bride, he carried 
her off to a beautiful and artistic home in New 
York, where artists and literati loved to congre- 
gate, for though a politician, Mr. Arthur drew 
a sharply denned line betwixt his private and 
public life. Now, too, musicians were quickly 
drawn there, by the rare gift of the charming 
woman of whom it was said: " Wherever she 
was, there was good cheer and a sunny atmos- 
phere." 

Ere long, a son was born unto them and 
given the name of the brave explorer and gal- 
lant commander of the " Central America." 
Wee William, however, scarce survived infancy, 
while it was several years before another boy 
came to fill the place of their lost darling and 
be called after his father. 

Little Chester Alan was a great pet, but 
Mr. Arthur longed for a daughter and a friend 
has told me how, one November night, he came 
running over to her house, all aglow with de- 
light, to inform her husband that he had a 
baby girl. 

242 



Nellie Arthur and Her Brother 

" I had to come and tell it," he said; and 
this tiny maid was christened Ellen for her 
mother, although always known as Nellie, or 
Nell. 

The doors of all the best houses in the me- 
tropolis were open to the Arthurs, while the 
sweet voice of the wife was often heard at 
concerts and musicales for church or charity. 
The husband, too, like the majority of our 
Presidents, had attained considerable reputa- 
tion as a lawyer, besides being Collector of the 
Port of New York. He was, likewise, looked 
upon as a man of justice and humanity, es- 
pecially after he took up the case of a poor 
colored girl, a Sunday-school superintendent, 
who was ejected from a street car, after paying 
her fare. 

Chester Arthur brought suit for damages 
and recovered five hundred dollars for this Liz- 
zie Jennings, as well as bringing the whole mat- 
ter before the public, which resulted in the rail- 
road company being forced to reverse its order 
against passengers of color. 

Mrs. Arthur, with the natural shrinking of 

a rather retiring character, often protested 

against her husband " dabbling " in politics, 

but they had for him a fascination which he 

243 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

could not resist and she passed out of his life 
the very year that he was nominated and elected 
to the Vice-Presidency. 

Her departure was so sudden that one who 
knew her well, said: " I think of her only as a 
radiant woman and there is associated with her 
death no thought of sickness or physical de- 
cline. Her death was the first pain she had 
cost her friends." 

The Mendelssohn Glee Club of New York 
begged the privilege of singing at her funeral. 

The loss of the wife he adored was a bitter 
blow to the aspiring candidate, just at this 
crisis in his career, and it left very desolate the 
motherless boy and girl in the big Lexington 
Avenue house. Fortunately, Chester, Jr., was 
now a well-grown lad in his teens, old enough 
to be sent away to school; while Mr. Arthur's 
youngest sister, Mrs. McElroy, a delightful and 
cultured lady of Albany, came forward and 
took little eight-year-old Nellie under her kindly 
care. 

The following twelvemonth was, of course, 
an exciting and anxious one for them all and, 
I think, no one felt President Garfield's assas- 
sination and death more than Vice-President 
Arthur. Never could he hear his colleague's 
sufferings mentioned without deep emotion and 
244 



Nellie Arthur and Her Brother 

he keenly felt sundry cruel insinuations that he 
had been indirectly the cause of the act. 

It was with the greatest reluctance that he ac- 
cepted the martyred ruler's place and very 
quietly he took the oath of office, at his own 
home in New York, in the gray, early dawn 
of a dreary September day. 

But if he entered the White House under a 
cloud, he came out of it with the respect of 
friends and foes, and his administration, to-day, 
is acknowledged to be one of the best in all our 
history. 

It was some months before he took his chil- 
dren to Washington. Indeed, for the remain- 
der of the year, the Mansion was kept closed 
as a mark of respect to the Garnelds, and then, 
Mr. Arthur was not at all pleased with the 
presidential home. 

A long time had elapsed since Martha John- 
son Patterson gave it her thorough renovating, 
and again the carpets were worn, the furniture 
faded and broken and the china chipped and 
mismatched. Calling for the Commissioner of 
Public Buildings and Grounds, he informed him 
of the changes he desired. 

" But, Mr. President," protested the Com- 
missioner, " there is no money to do it." 

" You go ahead and do the work," com- 
245 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

manded Chester Arthur. " I will not live in 
a house looking this way. If Congress does 
not make an appropriation, I will have it done 
and pay for it out of my own pocket. I will 
not live in a house like this." 

So again the Nation's Homestead was re- 
paired and refurnished and the Government 
footed the bills. 

All was in fine order, then, when Mrs. Mc- 
Elroy, with her two daughters, May and Jes- 
sie, came to assist her brother in doing the 
honors of the Republican Court, and brought 
small Nellie, who is remembered at Washington 
as a graceful little maid, with much of her 
father's charm of manner and the warmest of 
hearts, which showed itself in efforts to give 
pleasure to those poorer than herself. She was 
not there constantly, however, as during part of 
these four years she was a pupil of a French 
school in New York, while Alan was at col- 
lege. Holiday time, though, saw both at home 
and they frequently brought young friends 
with them to enjoy the amusements of the Cap- 
ital. 

A lady who was once one of these youthful 

guests has sent me an account of an Eastertide 

pilgrimage which she made with them to their 

grandfather's monument at Annapolis, accom- 

246 



Nellie Arthur and Her Brother 

parried by the President, the Arthur children's 
godmother, Mrs. Hunt, and other people of 
note. A swift run in a special car, through 
the sweet blossom-scented country and then they 
were received at the Naval Academy by a salute 
of twenty-one guns and a general review of the 
cadets. This was followed by a luncheon at 
the Superintendent's quarters and, of course, a 
visit to the tall shaft of Quincy granite 
bearing the name of " Herndon." 

But, on the whole, accounts of this regime 
are extremely meagre owing to Mr. Arthur's 
distaste for having his domestic affairs heralded 
abroad. 

He would not permit chronicles of the " daily 
doings of the White House " to be published, 
and as one writer has said: 

" The President's children were not photo- 
graphed and paragraphed and made the sub- 
ject of a thousand flat and fatuous stories." 

Indeed, the Arthur family was a tantalizing 
disappointment to all the Paul and Paulina 
Prys of the press and they made the most of 
one tale that leaked out regarding the portrait 
of a pretty woman hanging in the President's 
private apartments, before which masses of cut 
flowers, from the White House conservatories, 
were heaped every morning by his personal or- 
247 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

der. It was with chagrin, then, they learned 
that the picture was the likeness of Mr. Ar- 
thur's dead wife — little Nellie's mother. 

Mrs. McElroy, who was a graduate of Mrs. 
Emma Willard's famous Seminary in Troy, 
made a most charming hostess and the hospi- 
tality of the Mansion was dispensed with a 
gracious dignity that had never been known 
there before. 

New Year's Day has always been a gala day 
at the White House, so it was on the first of 
January after Garfield's assassination, that 
President Arthur held his first public reception 
and all those who came to shake the new magis- 
trate's hand were deeply interested in the tall 
youth who assisted the ladies in the Blue Room, 
and in the small daughter of the family who 
appeared dressed in a pretty frock of pale blue 
cashmere and accompanied by two little school 
friends and the children of Mrs. Eugene Hale. 

They were a very frightened, pale-faced flock 
of youngsters, however, when Mr. Allen, one 
of the Diplomatic Corps from the Hawaiian 
Islands, having paid his respects to the Presi- 
dent, passed into the ante-room and, almost im- 
mediately, fell dead upon the floor. Of course, 
the reception was at once stopped and gloom 
248 



Nellie Arthur and Her Brother 

enshrouded the Mansion. On the next occa- 
sion of this kind, General and Mrs. Grant as- 
sisted Mrs. McElroy and her daughters, but 
when the Drawing-Room receptions were held 
a bevy of young ladies was invited to give lus- 
ter to the functions. There were, generally, 
three relays of these, each taking its turn in 
receiving the callers, while the others formed a 
background of youth and beauty. When at 
home you may be sure Nellie was always in the 
midst of this " rosebud garden of girls," a veri- 
table pet among the petticoats. 

The President delighted, also, in dinner par- 
ties, both public and private, and one Saturday 
night a party of his old cronies came from New 
York, each bringing his own oyster fork which, 
after using, he presented to Mr. Arthur as a 
souvenir. 

A prince of hosts was he, as well as a.->bon 
vivant, and courteous in the extreme, as was 
shown at a banquet when two rural Congress- 
men attempted to spear some small Spanish 
olives with their forks. So vigorous was the 
onslaught of one, that the olive bounded out of 
the dish and landed in the shirt bosom of a 
guest sitting opposite. 

Miss May McElroy and some others were 
249 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

inclined to laugh, but the President in the most 
dignified manner warned them by a look and 
adroitly turned the matter off. 

Although the son of a Baptist clergyman, 
he became an Episcopalian and he and his house- 
hold attended service at St. John's — the old 
church of the Presidents — which, at that 
period, had an exceedingly talented and popular 
rector who is now a Bishop of a mid-western 
state. It was in this historic edifice, too, that 
he placed a beautiful window, as a memorial to 
his wife. 

Meanwhile, young Alan Arthur was shooting 
up into a long, lean youth an inch taller than 
his father, and leading a rather happy-go-lucky 
student's life at Columbia and Princeton, where 
he had a tendency toward getting into the trou- 
bles that come only too easy to undergraduates. 

The only one, too, of Garfield's Cabinet 
whom President Arthur retained, was a former 
White House boy, and the son of a ruler, slain 
in office — Robert Lincoln. 

Almost too swiftly three years and a half sped 
away and then, with a cordial clasp of the hand 
and a few words of congratulation to his suc- 
cessor — the first successful Democratic candi- 
date since Buchanan — Chester Arthur slipped 
250 



Nellie Arthur and Her Brother 

away from Washington and back into private 
life, with his little family. 

The young girls of the capital, though, sorely 
regretted their going, and a delegation of them 
followed genial Mrs. McElroy to the station, 
and crowded the flower-laden car to bid " good- 
bye " to her, her daughters and little niece. 

There are those who claim that Mr. Arthur's 
political career and worries shortened his life, 
for he died suddenly and was laid beside his 
" sweet Virginia bride " in Rural Cemetery, 
while Nellie was still in her early teens. 

Good " Aunt Mary," however, continued to 
be ever like a mother to the young orphan, and 
she dwelt at Albany with her kind relatives 
until she wedded Mr. Charles Pinkerton. Be- 
ing something of an invalid, she has, since her 
marriage, led rather a retired life, chiefly in one 
of New York's quietest streets; but has lately 
decided upon a suburban home in hopes that it 
may restore her health. 

As for Chester Alan Arthur, Jr., he appears 
to care little for America or Americans, and 
having married a lady of wealth, spends most 
of his days on the other side of the Atlantic, 
in the capitals of Europe. 



251 



F 



CHAPTER XX 

a president's ward 

CC "J AOUR kinds of blood flows in my veins 
And governs each, in turn, my brains. 
From Cleveland, Porter, Sewell, 
Waters, 

I had my parentage in quarters. 

My father's father's name I know, 

And further back no doubt might go. 

Compound on compound from the flood 

Makes up my old ancestral blood ; 

But what my sires of old time were, 

I neither wish to know, nor care. 

Some may be wise — and others fools; 

Some might be tyrants — others tools ; 

Some might have wealth — and others lack ; 

Some fair, perchance — some almost black ; 

No matter what in days of yore, 

Since now they're known and seen no more." 

These quaint lines were written by keen, old 
Aaron Cleveland, a Connecticut minister, some 
hundred and odd years ago, and the same " an- 
cestral blood " flowed in the veins of his grand- 

252 



A President's Ward 



son, who first saw the light in an antique house, 
with gable ends and ivy-covered porch, stand- 
ing in the obscure New Jersey village of Cald- 
well, where church documents still bear this 
record: " Stephen Grover Cleveland, baptized 
July i, 1837; born March 18, 1837." 

Little Grover was the fifth of the nine chil- 
dren who called the Rev. Richard Cleveland 
" father," and during that worthy Presbyterian 
divine's six years of pastorate in Caldwell he 
had a child christened every year. 

They had moved to Fayetteville, N. Y., how- 
ever, before the boy was old enough to go to 
school, and there he seems to have been a mis- 
chievous urchin, sticking bent pins in the seats 
of chairs and playing pranks which sometimes 
brought down upon him the wrath of his fellow 
pupils. 

An old farmer used to love to tell the story 
how he once thrashed an embryo President of 
the United States. 

" It was one of those old-fashioned, rough- 
and-tumble fights, in which each fellow pulls 
hair, scratches, kicks and cuffs to his heart's con- 
tent," he would say, with a chuckle. 

" I was a much more powerful lad than 
Grover. Soon I had him down. I kept yelling 
out to him, ' You will stick pins in my seat, will 
253 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

you ! You will, will you ! ' And each time I 
hit him another bat in the eye or neck. Well, 
Shell Pratt and Jewett Dunbar finally pulled me 
off, made us shake hands, and declare the fight 
over, with victory for me." 

Mr. Cleveland, too, remembered this, but 
bore no malice, and when President, invited his 
quandom enemy to dine at the White House. 

But so many little folks in the parsonage to 
feed and clothe, made a terrible drain upon the 
poor clergyman's stipend and, as soon as possi- 
ble, the boys were obliged to turn in and help 
support the family. So, at an early age, Grover 
found employment in a " general store," where 
he swept and cleaned, opened and closed shut- 
ters and waited on customers for the magnifi- 
cent sum of fifty dollars per year; living, mean- 
while, over the shop. 

That it was not a bed of roses we may gather 
from a description given by a roommate of 
young Cleveland's at this time. He says : 
" We lay upon a tick stuffed with straw, which 
had the uncomfortable peculiarity of accumulat- 
ing in knots here and there. I recall how, often 
in the night, Grover would stir uneasily on his 
hard bed, maybe even getting up and, with 
his hand, reaching down in the tick to remove 
the troublesome lump on which he was resting. 
254 



A President's Ward 



In that room, without carpet, without wall- 
paper, without pictures — drear and desolate, 
we two lived together one whole year. In the 
winter we sometimes almost froze. There was 
no stove in the room, heat coming up from a 
pipe leading from the store below. Rats ran 
in the walls and often peered at us from out 
holes in the plaster." 

Better days, though, dawned, and the lad was 
able to carry out a fond desire and attend an 
Academy at Clinton while, at seventeen, and 
after his father's sudden death at Holland 
Patent, we find him teaching in the New York 
Institution for the Blind. 

Sedulously he labored among the sightless 
ones, but it was a happy hour for Grover Cleve- 
land when he decided to follow Horace Gree- 
ley's advice — " Go West, young man ! Go 
West!" 

Not that he went very far; for, although he 
started for Ohio — then considered quite a 
western state — he stopped at Buffalo, to visit 
an uncle, who was a wealthy stock-raiser just 
without the town, and there he was induced to 
remain. There, too, he took up legal study and 
there laid the foundation of his fortunes, becom- 
ing partner in a law firm, Mayor of the city and 
Governor of New York. 

2CC 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

A free " hail-fellow-well-met " bachelor life 
he led for many years, but he was ever the chief 
support of his mother, as long as she lived, in 
the little cottage at Holland Patent; besides 
giving a most liberal education to his youngest 
sister, Rose, an original brainy girl, who, from 
a tiny child, would browse amongst her fa- 
ther's books, and loved reading far better than 
play. 

Madame Brecker's French kindergarten was, 
perhaps, the most fashionable school for little 
Buffalo children in the late sixties, and there a 
merry set of small scholars learned to chatter 
in the polite language of la belle France. Con- 
spicuous among these was a brown-haired las- 
sie, with soft violet eyes, who displayed an un- 
usually quick understanding and aptitude for 
study. This was young Frances Folsom, the 
only child of one of Mr. Cleveland's law part- 
ners. The bachelor mayor was a frequent 
visitor in her home and made quite a pet of the 
bright little girl, so when, in 1875, Oscar Fol- 
som was killed in a carriage accident, it was no 
surprise that he had left his associate, guardian 
to his eleven-year-old daughter. 

For a time her mother carried her off to Me- 
dina, her own native place, but she later re- 
256 



A President's Ward 



turned to Buffalo and attended the Central 
School, from which she was graduated with a 
certificate that permitted her to enter the sopho- 
more class at Wells College, the institution se- 
lected by her guardian for the " finishing " of 
her education, and where she passed three bliss- 
ful years, being a favorite with both teachers 
and pupils, all of whom, you may be sure, took 
keen note of the letters and flowers that came 
to Miss Frances from the Governor of New 
York. It was while she was a collegiate that 
her guardian was nominated for President, and 
in order to show how the prospect appeared 
from a schoolgirl's standpoint, I venture to copy 
a letter which was published a few years ago in a 
popular periodical, and which was written, at 
the time, by one of Frances Folsom's class- 
mates to a friend in New York : 

"Wells, October 23, 1884. 
" Most of the girls here are much older than 
I, for you must remember this is a full-fledged 
college, and not a school. I must tell you about 
one girl here, a Miss Folsom (not to be at all 
conceited, she is ' gone ' on me, to use a common 
expression), who is awfully nice. She is very 
handsome, and, my dear, I want you to under- 
stand Grover Cleveland is perfectly devoted to 
257 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

her. Sends her flowers all the time and writes 
her regularly every week. Of course, she is 
very much excited to know how the election is 
coming off, as it will in one case be slightly 
agreeable to her. 

" I had too much fun with her the other 
evening. She said: 'Girls, wouldn't it be 
pretty nice for me to spend a winter at the 
White House ? ' 

" I said, ' Why, of course; but you must be 
sure to invite us all to see you.' 

" I am sadly afraid she will never spend 
such a winter, aren't you? " 

But she did, as we all now know, and many 
winters, while her schoolmates were not for- 
gotten, but given a share of her good times. 

The following June, too, when the " class of 
'85 " held its commencement at Wells, no 
" sweet girl graduate " attracted more notice 
than pretty Frances, while the most superb of 
all the floral tributes showered upon the maid- 
ens fair, were those which came to her from the 
White House conservatories. 

For long ere this the President had discovered 
that his former partner's daughter was some- 
thing dearer than a ward, and undoubtedly a 
few tender words were spoken ere she sailed 
258 



A President's Ward 



away with her mother for a winter of sight- 
seeing amidst the wonders of the Old World. 

I fancy it was no great pleasure to Miss Rose 
Elizabeth Cleveland to give up the teaching and 
lecturing, by which she was winning a name for 
herself, and go to assist her brother in his so- 
cial duties at Washington. She did so very 
pleasantly, however, and is remembered as a dis- 
tinct personality, with a somewhat masculine de- 
cision in her bearing and her hair cropped as 
close as a man's. She could entertain, for she 
talked well, almost as she wrote, but some 
Congressmen and their wives were rather 
overpowered and bewildered by the classical 
quotations with which she interspersed her con- 
versation. 

Curiously enough, it was " Bachelor " Cleve- 
land who, more than any President, took the 
hearts of young Washingtonians by storm and 
made for himself a lovable reputation among 
them. It chanced in this wise: For many a 
year Easter Monday has been considered " Chil- 
dren's Day " at the Capital, for then, rich and 
poor, white, black and brown, come to roll their 
gaily colored eggs down the knolls on the White 
House grounds and hold a joyous spring festa. 
Formerly the merrymakers seldom saw the fam- 
259 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

ily, but on the Easter after Mr. Cleveland's in- 
auguration it in some way became whispered 
about that the Head of the Nation wished a 
word with the little folks. 

Instantly the Mansion was besieged, and, 
with rare good humor, the President and his 
sister received them in the East Room, while, as 
one witness describes it, " The spectacle was like 
a picture from Gulliver's Travels. Lilli- 
putians delighted to have the giant reach down 
and take their diminutive hands in his ample 
palm, and not a few, in their excitement, made 
freewill offerings of Easter eggs which had seen 
hard service." 

It was a holiday long to be remembered, as 
it certainly was by one schoolboy, who, on hear- 
ing two strangers admire a handsome turnout 
and wonder who the occupants could be, stepped 
proudly up and said: " Why, that's the Presi- 
dent! Don't you know the President? I do! '' 

" Oh, indeed! " responded the lady. " It is 
very kind of you to tell us who it is. But where 
did you learn to know the President? " 

" I went to the White House and he had us 
all come to see him," and, with animated face, 
the lad described that wonderful Easter Mon- 
day reception in such glowing terms that, as 
260 



A President's Ward 



the visitor turned away, she remarked to her 
companion : 

" I wish the President could have seen and 
heard that child." 

While in the White House, Miss Rose took 
advantage of the eclat of her position to publish 
a book entitled, " George Eliot's Poetry and 
Other Studies," which became so much the 
vogue that it ran through twelve editions within 
a year, and brought her in twenty-five thousand 
dollars in royalties. 

This was not altogether pleasing to her 
brother, and they disagreed in consequence, but 
she remained faithful to her post until the spring 
of 1886, when rumors became rife all over the 
land that the President was about to take unto 
himself a wife, and that, following the custom 
of great rulers, he would be married in the offi- 
cial residence, rather than in that of the bride. 
Indeed, the bride-elect was still beyond seas. 
But as the jocund month of May drew to a close 
she came sailing back, bringing with her a store 
of happy memories of foreign scenes and a most 
dainty and elaborate French trousseau. A few 
days at the Gilsey House, in New York, and 
then, early in the morning of June second, Miss 
Rose met bonny Frances at the station in Wash- 
261 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

ington and escorted her to the Republican Court, 
where the wedding was solemnized that same 
evening. 

Grover Cleveland was the first and, as yet, 
only President to be married in the White 
House itself, and the old mansion fairly blos- 
somed out with palms and flowers and the na- 
tional colors. The historic Blue Room, where 
the ceremony was performed, was particularly 
beautiful. The tapers in the great candle- 
stands, five feet high, that had been presented to 
General Jackson, were lighted, and the whole 
apartment transformed into a bower of tropical 
plants, with a floral counterfeit of flames in the 
fireplace. Upon the east mantel the joyful day 
was calendared in pansies, while the opposite 
one, banked with the queen of flowers, shading 
from lightest pink to deepest crimson, displayed 
the monogram C. F. in moss and white roses. 

The girlish bride looked like a rose herself 
as she entered on the arm of her childhood's 
friend and guardian, and was united to him by 
the Rev. Dr. Sunderland, in the presence of a 
few intimate friends and relatives and mem- 
bers of the Cabinet, while the Marine Band 
softly played Mendelssohn's Wedding March. 

A President's salute of twenty-one guns, from 
the arsenal, announced abroad that the ward 
262 



A President's Ward 



had become a wife, and the church bells through- 
out the capital city rang a gleeful marriage 
chime. 

The reception was small and informal, the 
most interesting incident being a message of 
congratulation received from Queen Victoria; 
and then the President and his girl wife slipped 
away through the south portico, though not 
quickly enough to escape the customary shower 
of rice and old slippers, and started for Deer 
Park, in the mountains of Maryland, where a 
cosy cottage had been placed at their disposal. 

Here they hoped to spend a quiet and retired 
honeymoon, screened from the public eye. 
What, then, was their dismay the following 
morning to find a pavilion had sprung up, 
mushroom-like, in a night, directly opposite their 
abode, and this was thronged with newspaper 
correspondents, who leveled a battery of field 
glasses in their direction, greedy to note and 
record every movement and detail for the ben- 
efit of their too curious readers. 

I warrant Mr. Cleveland then felt like sup- 
pressing the "freedom of the press." 

The youngest mistress of the White House 
since Dolly Madison, Frances Folsom Cleve- 
land at once won all hearts by her tact and grace, 
while at public receptions (of the " pump-han- 
263 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

die " variety) her manner was so charmingly 
cordial that young men were wont, after greet- 
ing her, to run around and get on the line again 
in order to shake hands a second time with the 
captivating first lady of the land. 

Devoted to music, she gave many delightful 
musicales in the pretty Blue Room, and also sur- 
rounded herself with song birds, canaries and 
mocking birds being her chief favorites. To 
these she became much attached, so when one 
feathered pet chanced to be killed by a rat she 
had it stuffed and mounted for her own apart- 
ment. 

Her husband was not so partial to the aviary, 
but liked to please his young wife, and an old 
retainer of the White House has told us how 
one night when the President was working late 
in his library, he called him in, between two and 
three in the morning, saying, " I wish, P — , 
you would take that mocking bird down; it an- 
noys me." 

This was done, and the tiny creature's un- 
timely solo ceased. 

Presently, however, Mr. Cleveland came out 
again to inquire, " Where did you put him? " 

" On Mr. Loeffler's desk." 

" But, oh, P — , you don't think he will catch 
cold there, do you? " 

264 



A President's Ward 



And nothing would do but the bird must be 
moved behind a screen to protect him from the 
chill night air. 

Certainly Mrs. Cleveland did much to make 
the twenty-second administration a success, for, 
as has been said of the shining light of the De- 
mocracy — 

" Nothing in his life had been so becoming to 
him as the doubling of it." 

When, too, after her husband's defeat by Mr. 
Harrison, they made for themselves a home in 
New York, she was as popular there as in Wash- 
ington. 

But we shall hear more of this President and 
his ward anon. 



265 



CHAPTER XXI 

" BABY McKEE " AND HIS SISTER 

THERE were gay times at Oxford, 
Ohio, in the good old days, when the 
students at the Miami University and 
the girls from the Oxford Female College met 
together for social amusement, and many a mild 
flirtation enlivened the rugged hill of learning in 
the quiet, collegiate town. 

One of the leading belles was Miss Caroline 
Scott, the graceful dark-eyed daughter of the 
principal of the Young Ladies' Seminary, and 
it created some surprise when her preference was 
given to a small, slender, rather insignificant- 
looking youth, plain of face and dress, and with 
an extremely diffident manner. 

But if short of stature, Benjamin Harrison 
had a long and proud lineage, one of his ances- 
tors being a signer of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, while he likewise boasted a strain of 
Indian blood in his veins, from Pocahontas 
through her marriage with John Rolfe, gentle- 
man. 

266 



"Baby McKee" and His Sister 

Perhaps, too, as the lovers wandered under 
the trees on moonlight nights, he would recall 
for his sweetheart his childish memories of his 
grandfather, brave old " Tippecanoe," who had 
been President for a brief season and in whose 
house he himself was born. 

I am sure, too, he must have described to her 
his own home, the fertile farm on a long tongue 
of land running between the Ohio and Miami 
rivers, and not many miles from the old Harri- 
son mansion. For here not only had he lived 
all his boyhood, but gone to school as well, 
since his father, John Scott Harrison, followed 
his parent's example, and, like him, had his chil- 
dren's earliest education given them at home, 
together with their cousins and friends. In a 
rough log schoolhouse, with a floor of puncheon 
and heated by a great wood fire, the little fellows 
spent their winter mornings, seated on high 
benches, with their tiny legs dangling, learning 
their A B C's, or perhaps singing in chorus : 

" 5 times 5 are 25 

5 times 6 are 30 

5 times 7 are 35 

5 times 8 are 40." 

and kindred instructive ditties. 

Out of school hours, however, they ran wild 
267 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

or helped with the milking, planting or havest- 
ing, while one of small Ben's greatest pleasures 
was a visit to " Grandma " at the homestead. 

He was a prime favorite with the gentle old 
lady, and with her parting kiss she was always 
wont to slip a piece of money into his hand. 

" Some day I will take you to North Bend to 
see her and the dear old farm," we can imagine 
the student Harrison saying; and so he did, just 
as soon as he and his fiancee had completed their 
college course — they both being graduated the 
same June — and he had made some progress 
in his legal studies, for they were married in the 
autumn of 1853. 

The honeymoon was a halcyon one, but the 
following year saw the youthful pair starting 
life in a boarding-house at Indianapolis, with a 
cash capital of just eight hundred dollars. 

Mr. Harrison earned his first money as a 
court crier, but ere long began the practice of 
his profession in a small way. One who knew 
him at that period says : 

" At first one wondered that a young man ap- 
parently so lacking in assertion, should presume 
to entrust himself so far from home. The won- 
der was heightened when it became known that 
the fledgling was the grandson of President Wil- 
liam Henry Harrison. But when he spoke his 
268 



"Baby McKee" and His Sister 

voice was pleasant, words well chosen and intel- 
ligent." 

Heredity and environment combined can do a 
great deal for any one, so, although his boy, 
Russell Benjamin — born also on the Western 
Reserve — was the child of comparative pov- 
erty, before the only daughter, Mary Scott, ar- 
rived, two years later, Dame Fortune had smiled 
upon the struggling lawyer and the little maid 
was welcomed to a comfortable and spacious 
home of the Hoosier State. 

Leaders in all church and charitable work, 
these good people soon drew around them a con- 
genial circle, but their chief care was the hap- 
piness and welfare of their children, while they 
often had with them a favorite niece of Mrs. 
Harrison's, bright young Mary Scott Lord. 
Very merry times, then, the two Marys had to- 
gether, as well as Russell, who was graduated 
at Lafayette and studied to be a mining en- 
gineer. 

Like so many others, however, Benjamin 
Harrison heard and heeded Columbia's " call 
to arms," and it was with a brave voice, if a 
sinking heart, that his wife bade him " Go and 
help to save your country and let us trust in the 
shielding care of a Higher Power for your pro- 
tection and safe return." 
269 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

In the shelter of home, too, she and her 
daughter rejoiced over the gallantry displayed 
at Resaca and Peach Tree Creek, which made 
him a brigadier-general, and certainly no 
prouder women ever entered Washington than 
those who accompanied " Little Ben," as he 
was dubbed in the army, when he was sent to the 
Senate. 

Ever domestic in his tastes and a devoted hus- 
band and father, this western man is .perhaps 
best remembered as a " grandfather," for both 
Russell and Mary were married ere he became 
President, and it was the latter's infant son, 
small Benjamin McKee — or " Baby McKee," 
as he was generally called — who was the most 
conspicuous childish figure during the Harrison 
regime. 

So, again, the White House nursery was 
thrown open and became the centre of the house- 
hold, with the sturdy youngster whose "doings " 
were chronicled far and wide, his wee sister and 
a tiny Marthena Harrison. It was in the his- 
toric Blue Room, too, that little Mary Dodge 
McKee was christened by her great-grandfather, 
the venerable Dr. Scott, with water brought 
from the river Jordan. The President fairly 
doted on these small folk, and never let a morn- 
ing pass without going in to see them, while he 
270 



"Baby McKee" and His Sister 

provided for them a host of pleasures and made 
much of Christmas and birthdays. Especially 
was " Baby McKee's " fourth anniversary cele- 
brated in fine style. 

Together, Mr. Harrison and his grandson 
led the procession of little guests to the dining- 
room, where, at a round table, were set fifteen 
high chairs. Two flags crossed on a plat of 
ferns formed the centre-piece and the favors 
at the places were rush baskets of bonbons, the 
handles fashioned of tricolor ribbons. Here 
and there, on the board, appeared dishes of 
beaten biscuits, made for the occasion in the 
form of tiny chickens with outspread wings; 
and the menu included bouillon, ice cream and 
cake. 

Mothers and nurses waited on the happy 
children, while the Marine Band discoursed 
sweet strains, and, at the close of the collation, 
all, old and young, danced together a Virginia 
reel. 

The Easter egg-rolling, too, was always 
watched by the President and his little nursery 
people from the porticoes and any Paschal hero 
was applauded to the echo. 

Master " Baby," though, could be very ob- 
streperous on occasions, as when the Bell-Ring- 
ers gave a grand concert in the East Room, 
271 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

he persisted in pushing in close to the perform- 
ers to examine their curious musical instruments 
and it was all mother and nurse could do to keep 
him in order. 

To Mrs. Harrison, the fine conservatories 
were a great pleasure. Always having a taste 
for painting, she now took art lessons and spent 
much time decorating china with flowers, espe- 
cially orchids, of which she was particularly 
fond. These rare blossoms, too, now first ap- 
peared on the White House table, at a dinner 
given to the Diplomatic Corps. 

She was, also, much interested in collecting 
relics of her predecessors and in plans for en- 
larging and improving the official residence. 
These plans were not carried out until long 
after her time, but in the restored greater 
" Mansion " of to-day can be traced many of 
her artistic ideas. 

I It was fortunate there were bright, young 
faces and sweet flowers to enliven the old place 
at this period, for, after all, there was more of 
shadow than of sunshine in the twenty-third 
administration. 

Starting with the tragic burning of Senator 
Tracy's house, when his wife and daughter per- 
ished and were buried from the Nation's Home- 
stead, it was not long before the Russian grippe, 
272 



"Baby McKee" and His Sister 

then making a devastating progress through 
the land, attacked the White House and every 
member of the family fell a victim, except the 
President himself. 

Devotedly, Mrs. Harrison nursed all the rest 
and then succumbed herself, and from that ill- 
ness her health was seriously impaired. Nor 
was this improved by the double sorrow which 
came to her, in the death of her sister, Mrs. 
Russell, and of her father, the Rev. John W. 
Scott — the latter a very old man of more than 
fourscore and ten — both of whom made their 
home with her in Washington. 

As her mother sank into invalidism, Mrs. 
McKee took upon herself more and more of the 
social duties of their position, and in these she 
was often assisted by the friend and " Cousin 
Mary " of former days, who was now the gay, 
young widow — Mrs. Dimmock. This lady 
spent much time with her relatives and it was no 
infrequent sight to see the President taking long 
walks with his daughter or niece, when they 
often covered a good ten miles on foot. 

Great rejoicing was there, also, when Benja- 
min Harrison was nominated for a second 
term, a rejoicing which extended even to the 
children, for there, in the very midst of the 
throng of Congressmen, Cabinet officers, notifi- 
273 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

cation committee and several hundred invited 
guests, appeared the favorite little namesake 
grandson, in white flannel suit and blue stock- 
ings, closely guarded by his German nurse. 

The speeches ended, all became quite up- 
roarious for the White House. Some cheered; 
Senators, Judges, young ladies and matrons 
clapped and exchanged a cross-fire of jokes and 
good-natured repartee; while salad, sandwiches 
and lemonade went merrily round. As for the 
President, he beamed like a full moon; shook 
hands with everybody; danced "Baby" Mc- 
Kee in the air, and, going out into the corridor, 
pressed some outsiders who loitered there to 
come in and partake of the luncheon. 

It was a general jollification. 

Mrs. Harrison was too unwell to be present 
on this festive occasion, for she was failing fast. 
The following October, she and the husband of 
her youth spent the thirty-ninth anniversary of 
their marriage together in the big residence, 
but, five days later, she passed quietly away and 
never knew that he lost the election to the very 
man whom he had defeated, four years before. 

So the New Year of 1893 was anything but 

a happy one at the Republican Court. The 

usual reception was given up and the White 

House looked dark and lonely, for, not only 

274 



"Baby McKee" and His Sister 

was it in mourning, but quarantined as well, 
since in the upper story Russell's baby girl, little 
Marthena Harrison, lay ill with scarlet fever. 

Sadly, then, this Hoosier family retired from 
office, but for years " Baby " McKee attracted 
a world of attention wherever he went, either 
in Indiana, at Boston, or, during the summer, at 
Saratoga, where he was often seen riding his 
bicycle beside his mother, who was, also, a 
devotee of the wheel, then in the height of its 
popularity. 

The ex-President was still devoted to his 
namesake and the small girls, while, one day, 
he presented them with a step-grandmamma, 
and who should it be, think you? Why, none 
other than the " Cousin Mary Dimmock," 
whom they had known all their lives. 

With this second wife, then, Benjamin Har- 
rison, twenty-third ruler of the United States, 
passed his last days and, when called up higher, 
left another little daughter — the child of his 
old age — who seems a very small " Auntie " 
for Ben, the young student at Yale, and his sis- 
ter, bonny Mary McKee. 



275 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE CLEVELAND BABIES AND A CHILDLESS 
COUPLE 

WHILE President Harrison's grand- 
children were kicking up their merry 
little heels in the White House nur- 
sery, a wee, winsome infant had opened her 
bonny bright eyes in the good city of New 
York. 

" We will call her Ruth," said her young 
mother, as she kissed the rosebud cheek, and 
when the People sent Grover Cleveland to 
Washington for the second time, this small girl 
went, also, to fill the place left vacant by Mary 
Lodge and " Baby McKee." 

In the chamber known as the " Prince of 
Wales' room," she and her nurse were cozily 
established and close to the apartment occu- 
pied by her parents, on the wall of which shone 
forth the quaint sign or crest selected by her 
father, the words " Life, Duty and Death," 
276 



The Cleveland Babies 



and on a shield, " As thy days are so shall thy 
strength be." 

For Mr. Cleveland used to say: " If I have 
a coat of arms it is that. I chose it years ago 
and keep it by me." 

In floods of sunshine and with loud acclaim 
this favorite of the Democracy was inaugurated 
to a second term, but the very night after an 
alarm arose in the Executive Mansion. Baby 
Ruth had been taken suddenly ill, doctors were 
summoned and there was much running to and 
fro. Fortunately, the cause for the anxiety 
soon passed and she was the sole darling of the 
Presidential household until September, 1893, 
when a small sister came to keep her company 
and to be the ninth child born within the his- 
toric residence, even as her mother was the ninth 
bride to be wedded there. 

To this tiny stranger was given the name of 
the Biblical queen of old, and rarely has a prin- 
cess of the blood royal been more lavishly pre- 
pared for and welcomed than was little Esther 
Cleveland. 

Her mamma took pleasure in fashioning 
many of the fairy-like garments herself, but 
the whole world, as it were, contributed to the 
dainty layette. 

277 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

From England and Germany, from France 
and Spain, came gift upon gift of rich woolen 
and silken fabrics, sheer lawns and softest flan- 
nels, socks knitted of the finest Berlin and 
Saxony yarn, six exquisite little cloaks, twenty 
pairs of chamois-skin shoes, a score of white 
silk frocks and the beautiful christening robe, 
also of silk but veiled with airy, embroidered 
chiffon. The most valuable of furs, too, were 
sent from the lands of the North and enough 
caps to cover a dozen curly pates. 

Nor were the presents confined to clothing, 
for cradles, cribs and carriages all found their 
way to the White House, to say naught of the . 
wonderful and costly dolls and tea sets and 
other toys, filling the playroom to overflowing, 
and for which, you may be certain, Ruth came 
in for her share. 

So the tiny Cleveland girls had plenty to 
amuse them within doors and they were very 
rarely seen walking or driving in the streets of 
Washington, for their mother greatly dreaded 
the sometimes unpardonable curiosity of stran- 
gers regarding her babies, especially after one 
daring souvenir-hunter attempted to cut a lock 
of hair from little Ruth's fair head as her nurse 
was carrying her across the hall. 

During the winter, then, they were kept 
278 






The Cleveland Babies 



pretty close in the home-nest, but, v/ith the first 
warm weather, away they all flitted to their 
lovely, cool summer house, " Gray Gables," on 
Buzzard's Bay. 

Meanwhile, out in the West, a shining White 
City had sprung into being and the nation was 
gaily celebrating the four hundredth anniver- 
sary of the discovery of America. To the 
capital, too, at this time came many foreigners 
of high degree. 

The very day that Esther was born, the 
President received at an informal reception, the 
young Japanese Prince, Yorihato Komatsu, a 
grandnephew of the Mikado, who was travel- 
ing incognito; while Mrs. Cleveland, with girl- 
ish enthusiasm, warmly espoused the cause of 
Princess Kaiulani, niece and heiress-apparent 
to the deposed Hawaiian queen, Liliuokalani. 

This dark-skinned, graceful maiden of eight- 
een, fresh from the English school where she 
was educated, attracted much attention at the 
Inauguration ball and the first Lady of the Land 
often had her at the White House and gave her 
most womanly sympathy; for this island Prin- 
cess came hither with her guardian, to ask aid 
of the American people to establish her rights 
to the throne of Hawaii, which she did in a 
sweetly pathetic but very schoolgirlish appeal. 
279 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

By her charm of manner, though, she certainly 
made a conquest of the Presidential family. 

All over the country, mothers were always 
interested in news of the little Cleveland chil- 
dren, and one July day, toward the close of the 
administration, the stork came again to the 
President's household. This time, it visited 
Gray Gables and brought a third daughter to 
complete the trio of sisters. 

Little Maid Marian was a " well-spring of 
joy " to the other two, and, for a brief season, 
she, too, was a girl of the White House. 

The year 1895 found the people of the South 
making elaborate preparations for a big Cotton 
States and International Exposition, to be held 
at the city of Atlanta, Ga., and, by September, 
all was in readiness and a throng of visitors 
journeyed thither for the grand opening. 

Distinguished visitors were there in abun- 
dance; Mr. Booker Washington — the colored 
orator — was ready with his address; while 
Victor Herbert's band convulsed the crowd with 
a lively medley of The Red, White and Blue, t 
Dixie and Yankee Doodle. 

Still the portals remained closed and the vast 
concourse waited, — for what, think you ? 
Why, just for the touch of a baby hand. 

At the same hour, miles and miles to the 
280 



The Cleveland Babies 



northward, at a gray house on a beautiful 
Massachusetts bay, the President sat in his gun- 
room, with his secretary and all his family be- 
side him. 

On a small shelf by the window rested a 
black rubber button set in a band of solid gold, 
around the edge of which ran this inscription, 
"Marian Cleveland, September 18, 1895." 

A most simple little object it looked, but it 
was connected by electric wires with Atlanta, 
and, at a certain time, the tiny finger of the two- 
months-old baby pressed the button. 

Instantly, then, in far-away Georgia, the gates 
of the Exposition swung open; the buzzing of 
machinery started up; cannon boomed, whistles 
shrieked, and, amid the cheering of the multi- 
tude, its busy life began. 

To-day, these stories of their infant days 
must seem like fairy tales to the Cleveland girls, 
for they were still very wee folk when they bade 
" good-bye " to the White House and their 
papa's place was taken by the man of whom we 
have heard before as a brave, young soldier- 
boy, serving on the staff of Rutherford B. 
Hayes — namely, William McKinley, another 
youth from that hotbed of Presidents, the West- 
ern Reserve. 

The nursery was now left empty, for there 
281 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

were no small people in the family of our twen- 
ty-fifth ruler, and Mrs. McKinley, like Mrs. 
Pierce, had only memories of the children she 
had loved and lost. 

Once, a blithe little Katie had prattled at 
her knee and a Christmas baby, who was given 
her own name of Ida, nestled for six months 
in her gentle arms, but both had been taken from 
her long, long before, and it was broken in 
health and spirits that she came as mistress to 
the Executive Mansion; there to meet the last 
and severest blow of her sad life, the striking 
down of her beloved and most devoted hus- 
band, by another of those miscreants who seem 
ever to haunt the footsteps of those who walk 
in high places. 

This, however, as we all know, came in the 
second term, so for four or five years they were 
comparatively happy, with Mrs. McKinley's 
aunt, Mrs. Saxton, there to keep her company 
and the President's nieces often with them. 
One, especially, Mabel McKinley, a young girl 
with the voice of a lark, was a great favor- 
ite with her uncle and he took pleasure in giv- 
ing her a fine musical education. This, too, 
proved of rare benefit to her in later years, for, 
although a -cripple and obliged to go on 
282 



The Cleveland Babies 



crutches, she now supports herself by singing in 
concert. 

Mrs. McKinley's love for little children was 
a marked characteristic. She could not pass 
a baby without stopping to pet it, and, when 
driving, would kiss her hand to all the young- 
sters along the way. Her time, also, was 
largely employed in devising and fashioning ar- 
ticles for the comfort or amusement of boys and 
girls, and thousands of slippers, crocheted by 
her nimble fingers, are said to have found their 
way to hospitals for children throughout the 
land. 

Quiet, too, as was the life she was forced to 
lead, one biographer has declared: " She was 
a wife who was the soul of her husband." 

It was to President McKinley, too, that the 
letter penned years before by General Grant, 
in his last moments, was presented; and it is 
needless to say that the grandson of the ex- 
President had no difficulty in gaining the right 
to wear the uniform of a West Point cadet. 

Meanwhile, sweet Frances Folsom Cleve- 
land — the ward-wife — had carried her three 
babies off to " Westlands," a big, double 
mansion, surrounded by spacious grounds, in 
the pretty collegiate town of Princeton, where 
283 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

they still make their home when not at " Gray- 
Gables." 

Esther and Marian are bright, well-grown 
lassies now, in their early teens, and very fond 
of the small brothers who have been added to 
the family circle since the old White House 
days. It is in low, sorrowful tones, though, 
that they speak of " sister Ruth " — the first- 
born of the Cleveland children — for she, as 
well as their illustrious father, has passed into 
the " dim far-away." 



284 



CHAPTER XXIII 

A BUNCH OF KNICKERBOCKERS 



w 



it~% T THO is now the head of the United 
States?" asked a teacher of her 
class, a twelvemonth or so ago. 

" Roosevelt," came in quick chorus. 

" And what is his title? " 

" Teddy," burst forth with delighted enthu- 
siasm. 

It was thus that old and young affectionately 
termed the President who has just gone out of 
office; while " Teddy bears "bore his name far 
abroad, and Teddy bairns for seven years held 
" merry war " within the old walls of the his- 
toric White House. 

Not long ago, in the royal nursery at Rome, 
Italy, a conversation was overheard, in which 
its small occupants were discussing a coming 
international marriage, then exciting interest m 
all circles. 

" No," said little Princess Yoland, the seven- 
year-old daughter of King Victor Emmanuel, 
285 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

to her younger brother. " You must not call 
our American cousin ' Caterina.' Mamma will 
do that. To you she will be ' Signora Cngina ' 
(Mrs. Cousin). You must not be too famil- 
iar." 

" Will she bring me a Teddy bear? " asked 
tiny Umberto. 

" No, you greedy boy ! She will be the one 
to have presents. Anyway, Teddy is coming 
to Europe and there will be no more bears." 

By which we may judge that young foreign- 
ers consider Mr. Roosevelt the originator and 
producer of the popular furry toy; as well as 
that little pitchers are possessed of as long ears 
in palaces as elsewhere. 

" Teedy," they called the wee lad in stiff 
white petticoats, with a curl on top of his head, 
in the old home in East Twentieth Street, New 
York, some forty odd years back, and a good 
friend of his has recalled a picture of the tod- 
dler, trotting about with " David Livingstone's 
Travels and Researches in South Africa," un- 
der his arm, pestering every member of the 
family to tell him what " foraging ants " were 
and what they did. All were busy and paid no 
heed to the baby student, until an older sister, 
to be rid of his teasing, sat down to investigate 
286 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

and found the destructive sounding insects were 
nothing worse than " the foregoing ants," at 
which her exasperation quickly expended itself 
in peals of laughter. 

A very delicate, asthmatic boy, though, was 
Theodore Roosevelt, and time would often have 
hung heavy on his hands, but for his love of 
books of adventure. Cooper's " Leatherstock- 
ing Tales were read and re-read, until Deer- 
slayer, Natty Bumpo, Hurry Harry and Ishmael 
Bush became as "dear, familiar friends"; 
while Mayne Reid's stories went with him on 
all his travels, even to far-away Egypt, where 
he was sent in hopes of improving his health. 

It was not change of climate, however, but 
a strong will, combined with outdoor, athletic 
exercise that transformed him into the sturdy, 
strenuous man he is to-day. 

As he said himself, " I determined to be 
strong and well and did everything to make my- 
self so." 

With this end in view, then, he ran, he rode, 
he swam, he boxed, he wrestled and hewed 
down trees; leading a healthy, romping life, es- 
pecially when at " Tranquillity," the country 
home of the Roosevelts, near Oyster Bay, on 
Long Island, until he could hold his own with 
287 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

his more robust brother Elliott, or any other 
fellow who played in Union Square or went to 
the public school he attended. 

One of his classmates at this period was a 
shy, retiring, rather bookish lassie, who dwelt 
in a brown-stone house in Fourteenth Street, 
facing the park. They became the best of 
chums, and there was no girl he liked so well 
to dance with, as Edith Carow, when both were 
pupils at the fashionable Dancing Academy of 
that day. He sent her valentines and was al- 
ways glad when she came to visit his sisters, 
Anna and Corinne. 

It was a happy time, but the passing years 
found them drifting apart, when all three 
maidens were transferred to Miss Comstock's 
celebrated French school and Theodore entered 
Harvard. 

There he made his strong personality dis- 
tinctly felt, for he soon set the whole college to 
skipping rope; quoted Elizabethan poetry until 
they thought him " more or less crazy " ; 
flaunted a pair of gaudy red and white striped 
stockings in the gymnasium ; studied as well as 
he boxed; played baseball, football and polo; 
taught in a Mission Sunday School; ran races; 
fell in love, and was graduated with the high- 
288 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

est of honors, coming out a Phi Beta Kappa 
man. 

It was in Boston that he lost his heart to a 
beautiful girl, belonging to one of the most aris- 
tocratic families of the " Hub," and, three 
months after his graduation, he married Alice 
Lee and went to Europe for his honeymoon. 

There, too, he distinguished himself by 
climbing the highest and most dangerous moun- 
tains of the Alps — the snow-crowned Matter- 
horn and Jungfrau; for which daring deed, he 
was made a member of the Alpine Club of Lon- 
don. Surely, never since Claes Martenszen 
Van Rosenvelt — the founder of the family in 
this country — crossed the seas from Holland 
to New Amsterdam, in 1649, nas ne na d so 
versatile and energetic a descendant as this 
young Knickerbocker of the Knickerbockers. 

There was rare rejoicing, too, in the Dutch 
household when his first child was born, but 
alas ! the joy was quickly changed to woe, for 

11 The Mother's Being Ceased on Earth, 
When Baby Came from Paradise," 

a grief which was closely followed by the death 
of Mr. Roosevelt's mother. 

So the little Alice Lee had to be consigned to 
289 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

the care of her grandparents in Boston, while 
the young widower plunged into both politics 
and literature for distraction, varied by hunting 
trips to the wilds of the West. 

The first time I ever saw Theodore Roose- 
velt was at an Author's Reading, when he en- 
tertained a large concourse of people in the 
Academy of Music, in Brooklyn, by a vivid ac- 
count of a hunt for grizzlies, and, certainly, his 
intense personality carried his audience with him 
and inspired it with all a hunter's enthusiasm. 
Since then, bears have always been connected 
with his name and should be upon his crest. 

One of young Mrs. Roosevelt's most inti- 
mate acquaintances, when she came as a bride 
to New York, was her husband's early friend, 
Edith Kermit Carow, who, however, was now 
living in England, and it was her most kindly 
letter of sympathy that the bereaved husband 
carried with him to North Dakota. Small 
wonder, then, that after two years, the man's 
lonely heart should have turned toward this 
dear companion of his youth! 

Crossing the sea, he sought and found her. 
They were married in St. George's Chapel, 
Hanover Square, London, and joyfully he 
brought her home to be a most loving step- 
mother to the little Alice. 
290 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

A veritable " chip of the old block " is this 
first-born daughter, and when a child was con- 
siderable of a tom-boy, which rather pleased 
her father, who once remarked: 

" Alice is a girl who does not stay in the 
house and sit in a rocking-chair. She can walk 
as far as I can. She can ride, drive and shoot, 
although she does not care much for the shoot- 
ing. I don't mind that; it is not necessary for 
health, but outdoor exercise is, and she has 
plenty of that." 

It was not long, however, before Miss Alice 
had to share the parental affection with a bevy of 
others. Five of them — Theodore the Second, 
Kermit, Ethel Carow, Archibald, and last, 
though not least, lively little Quentin; while, 
when they were infants, the nursery was always 
the first place Mr. Roosevelt sought, on coming 
home, as eager as the wee folk for a romp. 

In vain, his wife would plead, " Now, don't 
play bear! The baby is just being put to 
sleep." 

In five minutes, he would be tearing over the 
floor on all fours, as a veritable Teddy-bear; 
the youngest hopeful squirming out of Nurse 
Nance's arms and growling and clawing like a 
little cub; while the rest pranced about like a 
menagerie let loose. 

291 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

It was the merriest, noisiest sort of a house- 
hold, for even as Governor and President, 
Theodore Roosevelt has always been a boy with 
his boys, and they consider him the finest play- 
fellow in all the world. 

" Sagamore Hill," as the country seat near 
Oyster Bay is now called, is their favorite abid- 
ing place, and thither all turn their faces with 
delight, every June. The homestead is a pleas- 
ant house of many gables, hidden in trees, and, 
nigh by is a sandy declivity which the young- 
sters use as a sliding place. 

" See," said the President, one day, as he 
sailed by in his yacht, the Sylph, " that is Coop- 
er's Bluff. Three generations of Roosevelts 
have raced down its slope. We did, only yes- 
terday. Good run, that! " 

Outdoor sports are here, of course, the ones 
most indulged in, and as all love animals, there 
are pets galore. Very queer specimens, too, 
some of them have been. 

A black bear might be expected and the 
shaggy fellow chained in the Sagamore Hill 
garden was called " Jonathan Edwards," after 
the famous divine, who was their ancestor, on 
the distaff side. 

During one of the father's political tours 
292 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

through Kansas, a small girlish admirer flung 
on board of the Presidential train, a tiny baby 
badger, at the same time shouting out, " His 
name is Josiah." 

" He looked," said Mr. Roosevelt, " for all 
the world, like a small flat mattress, with a leg 
under each corner." But he took Josiah home, 
where he was brought up on a nursing-bottle, 
until he had cut his teeth — from which time 
on he showed his gratitude by chasing the boys 
and nipping their calves and ankles, whenever 
let out of his cage. 

" Skip," a bright little black puppy, was 
also one of the President's western souvenirs, 
and he was never so happy as when permitted 
to ride on a horse, with his master, where he sat 
up in the saddle as straight as a hussar. 

A prime favorite is Algonquin, the calico 
pony from Iceland, which was presented to 
Archie and on which he loves to scamper over 
the country, with sometimes Skip perched up 
before him. 

Long, too, has been the line of dogs and 
guinea pigs which has come and gone. " Sail- 
or-boy," described as " a big, clumsy, loyal fel- 
low, of several good breeds," was the darling 
of all, while the spotted guineas generally 
293 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

boasted such distinguished names as Bishop 
Doane, Father O'Grady, Dr. Johnson, Fight- 
ing Bob Evans and Admiral Dewey. 

On a certain occasion, too, a guest at the 
house was both astonished and amused, to have 
one of the urchins rush in with the startling an- 
nouncement — "Oh, oh, Father O'Grady has 
had some children." 

When these four-footed companions pass to 
the " Happy Hunting Grounds " of dumb 
beasts they are decently interred at the end of 
the lawn, in a plot marked by a rough stone on 
which is hewn the words " Faithful Friends," 
and below, " Jessie," " Susie," " Boz," and 
other names of lost pets. Kermit generally 
conducts the obsequies and he was much scan- 
dalized, one day at the White House, upon 
discovering a rabbit belonging to Archie which 
had lain a whole day unburied. A court-mar- 
tial was summoned and Ted made Judge-Ad- 
vocate-General. 

Evidence was taken, after which the Judge's 
verdict, solemnly rendered, was: "It was 
Archie's rabbit and it is Archie's funeral. Let 
him have it in peace." 

Mr. Roosevelt, himself, teaches his sons to 
shoot, swims with them in the Cove, and ac- 
companies them on long horseback rides. Pic- 
294 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

nics, too, are very popular at Sagamore Hill, 
but the gala day of all the summer is when 
he, his boys and their cousins go camping. 

The spot selected is a secluded one on the 
shore, to which they can sail with all their out- 
fit and where they can catch fish for the dinner 
which they prepare themselves. 

The lads peel the vegetables, gather the 
wood and build the fire and the President, roll- 
ing up his sleeves, turns cook. 

" Um — m! " chuckles Archie; " you oughter 
just taste my father's beefsteak! He tumbles 
them all in together — meat, onions and pota- 
toes, but um — m ! it is good." 

With sharp-set appetites, all eat their fill and 
then, gathering round the camp-fire tell ghost 
stories until the shadows deepen, the stars come 
out overhead and the owls hoot weirdly in the 
dark woods, when they are glad to roll them- 
selves in their blankets, and, stretching out their 
feet to the glowing embers, sleep until sunrise 
summons them to a refreshing salt-water bath 
in the sparkling bay. 

At the country house Mrs. Roosevelt, too, 
has her hands full with her large family and 
the constant demands upon her time, but she 
finds leisure to sew with the St. Hilda Chapter 
— the sewing circle of Christ Church — and 
295 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

fashions many a garment for the child cripples 
in the House of St. Giles. 

Even when in Washington, she never forgot 
the poor folks at home, as was shown by the 
trinkets collected together and her bouquet and 
dance-card from an inauguration ball, brought 
to a consumptive girl, a " shut in," with little to 
brighten her weary existence. 

It was in these works of charity, too, that 
she found her chief consolation and distraction, 
during our short, spectacular, little war with 
Spain, when her husband was away winning his 
bravest laurels. 

No page in the history of that Cuban fray 
is of such intense interest as the dramatic storm- 
ing of San Juan hill, and the central figure is 
Theodore Roosevelt making his wild dash, 
amid shot and shell, up toward the Spanish 
batteries, closely followed by his troop of gal- 
lant Rough Riders, shouting: "Hurrah, now 
we'll show 'em what the Yankees can do! 
Down with the Dons ! Three cheers for Uncle 
Sam ! " 

They fought as well as they boasted and, ere 
long, Old Glory floated from the heights above 
Santiago, while, two days later, came that won- 
derful coup d'etat, the sinking of Admiral Cer- 
296 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

vera's fleet, on Sunday morning, in the beautiful 
Southern bay. 

Never was such a Fourth of July known as 
that on which the marvelous news came flash- 
ing across the electric wires to an astonished 
nation! We can imagine a quartette of boys, 
at Sagamore Hill, nearly turning themselves in- 
side out with excited joy; but the wife of the 
rector at Oyster Bay clasped a white-faced, but 
composed little woman in her arms, crying im- 
pulsively: "Colonel Roosevelt is a hero, be- 
yond a doubt, but you are three! " 

It was his gallantry at San Juan, even more 
than his efficiency as Police and Civil Service 
Commissioner, that made Theodore Roosevelt 
Governor of New York. He probably then 
thought he had attained the pinnacle of his 
ambition, and it was with regret that he con- 
sented to run for Vice-President, on the ticket 
with William McKinley. 

He felt that he was being " shelved." Still, 
his objections were overruled and he was swept 
into the " harmless office," as he considered it, 
just at the opening of the Twentieth Century. 

A trifle more than half a year rolled by 
and then, for the third time, a President 
of the United States was stricken down by an 
297 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

assassin's blow and America wept at his bier. 

For a few days there were favorable signs 
and hope soared so high that Mr. Roosevelt 
left his chief and joined his family at the Upper 
Tahawus Club in the Adirondacks, where two 
of its members were recuperating from illness. 

Friday, September thirteenth, 1901, was dark 
and lowering, with dashes of rain. Ted, Jr., 
elected to go fishing, but the other children 
joined their father and mother and a small 
party of friends, in a climb up Mount Marcy. 
The trail was a rough one and Mrs. Roosevelt, 
with the younger ones, soon gave it up as too 
arduous. The Vice-President and a few others, 
however, gained the top and, after surveying 
as much view as could be seen through the mist, 
spread their lunch on the edge of a pretty moun- 
tain lake known as " Tear in the Clouds." 
But, before they had commenced their repast, a 
snapping of twigs and quick footsteps made all 
start and a guide pushed his way through the 
underbrush, waving a yellow telegram. It 
read: 

" The President's condition has changed for 
the worse. 

" CORTELYOU." 

" I must go back immediately," cried Mr. 
298 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

Roosevelt, springing up, and leaving the col- 
lation untasted, hurried down the mountain, 
while at midnight, he received a second mes- 
sage : 

" Come at once." 

In a mad race with Death, then, the Vice- 
President, by horse and buckboard and special 
train, sped toward Buffalo, where the Pan-Amer- 
ican Exposition — the scene of the tragedy — 
was now closed, dark and silent. Ere half the 
distance was covered, however, William Mc- 
Kinley had breathed his last. 

It was at the fine substantial residence of Mr. 
Ansley Wilcox, in the little city by the lake, that 
our twenty-sixth President, with pale lips and 
tear-dimmed eyes, took the oath of office and, 
then turning to the witnesses, said with emotion : 
" In this hour of deep and terrible bereavement, 
I wish to state that it shall be my aim to con- 
tinue absolutely unbroken the policy of Presi- 
dent McKinley for the peace and prosperity 
and honor of our country." 

The days that followed were tumultuous ones 
and October's leaves were fluttering down ere 
the Roosevelts were completely established in 
the White House and the administration of our 
youngest ruler had fairly begun. 
299 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

Budding into womanhood, just as her father 
was so suddenly made President, Miss Alice 
now found herself the cynosure for all the mil- 
lions of eyes of the nation. Her every step was 
published and five days after the New Year of 
1902, when the Chief Magistrate was said to 
have shaken hands with 8,100 callers, another 
reception was given, at which she was intro- 
duced into society. A buffet supper was served 
and, peeping forth from wreaths of smilax and 
carnations, the old-time features of George and 
Martha Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln 
beamed down from the walls upon this White 
House girl of a later generation, and her bevy 
of friends, dancing on the waxed floor of the big 
East Room. 

It was very shortly after this, too, that Prince 
Henry of Prussia arrived in this country bear- 
ing a request from the German Emperor that 
the fair debutante would graciously christen his 
yacht, then being built in an American shipyard. 

To this she gladly consented, and February 
twenty-fifth was a gala day at Shooter's Island, 
where the royal bark was launched to the music 
of a brass band and the blowing of hundreds of 
steam whistles. When all was over this cable- 
gram was sent flashing under the Atlantic: 
300 






A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

" His Majesty, the Emperor, 

Berlin, Germany. 

" The Meteor has been successfully launched. 
I congratulate you and I thank you for your 
courtesy to me and I send my best wishes. 

" Alice Lee Roosevelt." 

Later, an invitation to attend the Coronation 
of King Edward of England, likewise, filled the 
maiden with delight; but when a question arose 
as to whether the daughter of a President should 
be received as a princess or not, Mr. Roosevelt, 
with true republican disgust, declared she should 
not accept, so, much to her chagrin, Miss Alice 
had to remain at home. 

It was made up to her, however, by a de- 
lightful trip with congenial friends to China, 
Japan and the Philippines, where she was much 
associated with Governor Taft and his family. 
This Eastern tour resulted, too, in many mat- 
rimonial engagements, chief among which was 
that of Miss Roosevelt to Mr. Nicholas Long- 
worth, a young lawyer and Congressman, of 
Cincinnati. 

Many, as they watched the gay girl spin- 
ning through the streets of Washington, in her 
little motor car, wondered that she cared to give 
301 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

up her exalted position; but, as in the case of 
Elizabeth Tyler, " Love ruled the Court," and 
on February seventeenth, 1906, the old East 
Room was again a bower of flowers and green- 
ery with an improvised altar at one end. 

No one to have seen Alice Roosevelt that 
morning, sitting, fancy work in hand, would 
have dreamed it was her wedding day. In- 
deed, some members of the family were quite 
distracted by her nonchalance. But when she 
entered on her father's arm she was a most re- 
splendent bride in white satin and point lace, 
with a train of silver brocade six yards long. 
Superb jewels held the veil and sparkled on her 
corsage and she carried a shower bouquet of 
rare orchids. 

Nicholas Longworth met her at the little altar 
and Bishop Satterlee quickly made them one. 

Since then the young couple have made sev- 
eral exciting trips through the wildest parts of 
our western country, meeting sundry adven- 
tures in Yellowstone Park and elsewhere, but 
they were always glad to return to the Capital 
and the good people in the Homestead of the 
Nation. 

It may be that Miss Alice enjoyed publicity, 
but it is very certain her brother Theodore never 
has. He was a lad of eleven when his father 
302 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

was nominated for the Vice-Presidency and a 
reporter, after a visit at the Roosevelt residence, 
ventured to write a complimentary notice of 
" Teddy," Jr. 

Some days later, the boy met the newspaper 
man, when, marching up and gazing at him 
severely through his iron-rimmed spectacles, he 
said: " My friend, I had my attention called 
to your article referring to me. I must ask 
you not to do this again. Please remember that 
I am not a candidate for public office. I do not 
seek notoriety." 

When, too, he was sent away to school at 
Groton, he had a scrap with a fellow pupil and 
gave him a sound pummeling for calling him 
" the first boy in the land." 

" I wish," he growled, " that my father 
would soon be done holding office. I am sick 
and tired of it." 

The papers, though, were filled with reports 
of Master Ted, when he lay seriously ill with 
pneumonia at this same Groton school, and it 
was then, too, that Archie, with much difficulty, 
scrawled him this note of sympathy: 

" I hop you are beter." 

He is the philosopher of the family and has 
the same expansive smile as his distinguished 
303 



-Boys and Girls of the White House 

parent. Interested in natural history he has 
made quite a creditable collection of insects, 
lizards, birds and such things, and is a great 
reader. Still, he is also devoted to outdoor 
sports, entering heartily into a rough and tumble 
game of football, while he is never happier than 
when on horseback. 

A member of an English Educational Com- 
mission, who had visited this country on a tour 
of inspection, was asked what impressed him 
most deeply on this side of the water. His 
answer was: 

" The children of the President of the United 
States sitting, side by side, with the children of 
your workingmen in the public schools." 

This is true, for it was at the Cove District 
school in Oyster Bay and the Grammar school 
in Washington that the younger Roosevelts laid 
the foundation of their education. They were 
taught to " give and take," like all the rest and 
when one of them was asked how he got along 
with the "common boys," replied: 

" My father says there are tall boys and 
short boys and bad boys and good boys, and 
that's all the kind of boys .there are." 

Of all the quartette of lads, Kermit is, per- 
haps, the fondest of pets and the one who most 
thoroughly sympathizes with Mr. Roosevelt 
304 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

when he tells them : " Be brave, but be gentle 
to little girls and to all dumb animals. A boy 
who maltreats animals is not worth having his 
neck wrung." 

It is the second son who always had a colony 
of white mice in the basement and used to carry 
round in his pocket a kangaroo rat, which he 
would sometimes produce at mealtime and al- 
low to hop across the table. For this particu- 
lar rodent was a very tame little fellow and 
would nibble most daintily at the lump of sugar 
to which the President liked to treat him. 

When the small tow-head Archie first came 
to the White House he quickly won the hearts 
of all the employes, by his cherubic smile and 
bewitching lisp and all were amused by the way 
the six-year-old shaver attached himself to the 
police squad detailed for duty at the Executive 
Mansion on holidays, always answering roll- 
call with them and saluting the sergeant as so- 
berly as the men in blue and brass. He was a 
picture when riding abroad on Algonquin and 
when he was ill with the measles the servants 
surprised him by a visit from his dear pony. 
The wee horse, no bigger than a Newfoundland 
dog, was smuggled into the elevator and carried 
upstairs, while the first thing the small convales- 
cent knew, there was " a pawing and prancing 
305 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

of each tiny hoof " across his bedroom floor. 
Well may you believe the diminutive calico Ice- 
lander was received with a whoop of astonished 
delight. He and Quentin kept the house lively, 
and rumors went forth of furious pillow fights 
which raged fiercely at early dawn and in which 
it was whispered, even the Head of the Nation, 
occasionally, condescended to take a hand. 

Quentin bears the quaint old name of a Hu- 
guenot ancestor, but this baby of the family has 
now passed his first decade and, for some time 
before leaving Washington was head of a base- 
ball nine at the Force School, which he ruled 
as rigidly as the President did his Cabinet. 

Ethel, the present Mrs. Roosevelt's only 
daughter, has been brought up in the same 
hearty, wholesome way as her brothers and was 
a general favorite at the Cathedral School where 
her education was completed. She somewhat 
resembles her father in features and is a striking 
contrast to some of the " prune and prism " 
young ladies who have dwelt in the White 
House since 1802. 

In the latter part of the summer of 1908, she 
celebrated her seventeenth birthday at Sagamore 
Hill, and how the little Puritan, Abigail Adams, 
would have opened her eyes could she have 
looked into the future and seen this Twentieth 
306 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

Century girl running a steam engine at the rate 
of sixty or seventy miles an hour. 

It was last year, while traveling through 
Georgia with her mother, Kermit, Archie and 
Quentin, that she performed this feat. Joining 
the engineer in his cab, she learned from him the 
uses of the throttle, air brake, reverse .lever, 
steam gauge and whistle, and then, taking his 
place, carried the train from Newman to At- 
lanta, and brought it in on time, too. 

" That is the jolliest frolic I have ever had," 
declared the merry maiden as she jumped to the 
platform, while the dictum of the regular pilot 
of the road was: " She did it all and she is a 
wonder. With a little experience, Miss Ethel 
would make a good engineer. She has nerve." 

In 1902 Congress again made an appropria- 
tion for repairing the White House. This time 
the amount was more liberal than formerly, be- 
ing $65,196, which was to be expended at the 
discretion of the President. So, then, the fond 
dreams of so many of its occupants — and es- 
pecially Mrs. Benjamin Harrison — were put 
into tangible shape. The Mansion was en- 
larged, renovated and beautified, being to-day 
far more worthy the ruler of a great nation 
than it ever has been before. The vast entrance 
hall is as imposing again, in its elegant sim- 
307 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

plicity, since the white pillars were set free 
from their former environment of partition and 
stained glass; and nothing could be more in- 
viting than the long corridor on the upper floor, 
fitted up as a living-room in quiet green and 
gray. 

Hither, Ethel and the boys came on stormy 
days for a game of ball, and from it opened 
out the bed-chambers, while at the extreme east 
end Mr. Roosevelt had his den, hung with 
swords and sticks — the cozy spot where he 
often burned the " midnight oil," when others 
slept. 

At the western end, too, new offices have been 
built for the President and his Cabinet, the old 
ones being turned into private quarters, thereby 
giving the resident family much more room and 
making life there more comfortable. 

Of course, these Knickerbockers, true to their 
ancient traditions, made a great deal of Christ- 
mas and the New Year. Holly and mistletoe 
always decked windows and walls and " the 
stockings were hung by the chimney with care.'* 
Some days before the festival, one of the apart- 
ments was converted into a store-room, of which 
only the mother and a maid held the key. In 
this all the presents were concealed as fast as 
they came in and on December twenty-fifth were 
308 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

distributed from a large oval table near one of 
the broad windows. 

Mr. Roosevelt, noting on his wild-wood 
tramps the destruction of pines, cedars and hem- 
locks throughout the forest lands, does not al- 
together approve of Christmas trees, but one 
year little Archie made up his mind to have one. 

" I'm going to fix up a tree," he confided to 
Quentin and, managing to smuggle a small 
evergreen into the house and hide it away in 
a large unused closet, the two urchins worked 
over it, with all the secrecy and enthusiasm of 
a veritable Santa Claus. 

Then, on Christmas morning, when all the 
household had received their gifts, they invited 
their father to accompany them to the closet. 

" What is up now? " he asked 

" Oh, you come and see," they shouted, and 
away the whole family trooped at the boys' 
heels. The door was thrown open and there 
stood the festive bush, blazing with lighted 
tapers, and gay with glittering balls, cornuco- 
pias and streamers, and the President enjoyed 
the surprise as much as anybody. 

Mrs. Roosevelt often gave children's parties,' 

to which the young sons and daughters of those 

high in public affairs looked forward with glad 

anticipation. One holiday gathering was par- 

309 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

ticularly attractive, when each guest received a 
rosette of ribbon and tinsel, in the centre of 
which was set a button, inscribed " Merry 
Christmas and Happy New Year " ; when they 
danced to the Marine Band, and when, for once, 
there was a Christmas tree in the spacious main 
dining-room, as well as a table laden with cake, 
candy and fruit. The President himself came 
in to pass the ices; Theodore, Jr., circulated the 
bonbons and it was just a jolly, informal merry- 
making generally. 

Hospitality without ostentation seemed to be 
the motto of the family and Mrs. Roosevelt 
came to her public home determined to make it 
as much like a private one as possible. Of 
course, on formal reception days, ceremony and 
etiquette held the floor — but at other times it 
was not unusual to have the Chief Magistrate 
turn away from an important conference to nod 
and wave his hand to Ethel, tripping by to the 
tennis court; to see Archie come dashing down 
the White House steps munching a piece of 
ginger-bread, and one tourist, at least, loves to 
tell how he caught the husband and wife wan- 
dering in the old Colonial garden, he with his 
arm about her waist, and, plucking a rose, fas- 
tened it in true lover fashion in her hair. 

Very rapidly, though, have the children been 
310 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

growing up. Master Teddy has left Harvard 
and, with the modesty and good sense for which 
he has always been noted, has accepted a rather 
lowly position in a New England factory, de- 
ciding to learn the business " from the bottom 
up." In November last, too, he cast his first 
vote for Mr. Taft. 

Brown-eyed Kermit took his brother's place 
for a short time at Cambridge but, being a 
devotee of the camera, left his studies to accom- 
pany his father to Africa, as photographer of 
the expedition, and was given a parting dinner 
and grand " send-off " by his fellow-students. 
The ex-President and his second son hope to 
hunt some big game in Southern jungles, perhaps 
bringing down a Teddy lion or Teddy tiger. 

Leaving school last spring, Miss Ethel had 
the honor of entering society from the Executive 
Mansion and made her debut at a Christmastide 
ball just as her sister Alice did before her. 

An ideal time for her, then, was the last 
winter of the Roosevelt administration, although 
she has done something besides dance and 
frivol, her mother thinking it time that she was 
initiated into the mysteries of housekeeping, and 
she took full charge of the White House linen. 
Every Sunday, too, found her teaching the Bible 
to a class of small colored boys at St. Mary's 
3ii 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

Chapel, while on pleasant Saturdays, during the 
fall, she took these same pickaninnies out to a 
vacant lot and taught them football, umpiring 
the game herself, and afterward treating them 
to a picnic lunch put up in the President's 
kitchen. 

One of the marked features of the adminis- 
tration which has just drawn to a close, was the 
grand peace tour of our battleships around the 
world, bearing the olive branch to foreign na- 
tions, and the crowning event of Mr. Roosevelt's 
term, his welcome home to the glorious fleet at 
Hampton Roads, on the one hundred and sev- 
enty-seventh anniversary of George Washing- 
ton's natal day. 

The elements were unpropitious, for a de- 
pressing rain fell and a northeast wind chilled 
the spectators to the bone. Still, all the naval 
world and his wife and thousands of others were 
there to see and, at an early hour the President, 
on the Mayflower, sailed down from Norfolk 
harbor. He was in fine feather, clad in the 
silk hat and frock coat of the Commander-in- 
chief of the Army and Navy; and with him 
were Mrs. Roosevelt, his elder daughter and 
young Kermit. The Harvard youth was en- 
thusiastic, but his father was more so. The 
showers could not dampen his ardor and no 
312 



A Bunch of Knickerbockers 

bluejacket on the spotless decks could have 
shouted "Bully! bully!" more boyishly than 
the Head of the Nation, when the flagship Con- 
necticut hove in sight and sailed with stately 
dignity past the reviewing stand, closely fol- 
lowed by the other great leviathans of war and 
water. 

"Welcome, welcome!" fluttered the three 
flags above the Mayflower, and the wireless car- 
ried the same message. 

" Thank you," was wigwagged back, while 
the band played " The Star Spanged Banner." 

To this, in spite of the rain, the President 
lifted his hat, but it struck him as funny and 
he fairly laughed aloud when across the waves 
floated the strains of " Oh, Mamie, Kiss Your 
Honey Boy," and his favorite fighting tune, 
" There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town To- 
night." 

Receptions, feasting and festivities followed, 
and it was truly a great Washington's Birthday 
in the Old Dominion, when we welcomed our 
famous Atlantic Fleet home again from a for- 
eign shore. 

Ten days later, however, the Roosevelt re- 
gime drew to a close and the joyous echoes at 
Old Point had scarcely died away ere the scaf- 
foldings for the inaugural of Mr. Taft were go- 
313 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

ing up in Washington and eleven-year-old Quen- 
tin was mischievously singing a naughty little 
street song — " Hurrah, Hurrah, Father's Go- 
ing to be Hung! " greatly to the annoyance of 
his mother, who begged him to desist. 

Not that she regretted leaving the White 
House. Indeed, we may believe she was glad 
to do so, since the dread of assassination has 
hung over her head, like the sword of Damocles, 
for seven long years. The thought that her 
husband might meet the same fate as his prede- 
cessor has ever been in her mind, and she 
strongly opposed his accepting a third term, 
pleading — " I cannot endure four more years 
of this agony of fear." 

Rumors of a matrimonial engagement for 
Miss Ethel have been whispered about, but she 
decidedly denies them, and will likely live 
quietly with her mother and Quentin at Saga- 
more Hill, while Mr. Roosevelt and Kermit are 
in Africa, for Archie is now at Groton school 
and Teddy — as we know — winning his way 
in an Eastern State. 

All five are promising sprigs of good old 
Holland stock and if Mynheer Claes Van 
Rosenvelt can look down from above he must 
surely be proud of these bright young Knicker- 
bockers. 

314 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE HOUSEHOLD OF TAFT 



H 



d^ F E is one of the most lovable men 
I ever knew." 

That is what a former college 
mate of William Howard Taft said to me, just 
after his nomination in the summer of 1908 ; and 
he followed it up by remarking, " He is just 
like a great, big boy." 

It was exactly this happy, boyish quality, com- 
bined with the rare gift of being a good and 
sympathetic listener, which made him so popu- 
lar at Yale, in the seventies, where, as another 
friend declared: 

" Taft was, perhaps, the best hail-fellow-well- 
met man in his class. ... It was impos- 
sible for him to speak an unkind word or do an 
unworthy act. The same cordial greeting, the 
same jolly laugh, the same hearty handshake, 
have made the boy father to the man. Taft 
spent much time with the fellows at the fence 
and elsewhere, and joined them in all sorts of 
315 



Boys and Girls of the White H ouse 

fun and frolic, but he never forgot that to-mor- 
row's lessons had to be prepared. 

" His room was a popular resort; but the boys 
generally understood that when the time for 
serious business arrived, they must subside or re- 
tire; and more than once Big Bill Taft had to 
pick up a fellow and cast him out bodily before 
he could secure peace and quietness." 

He was finally graduated second in a class 
of one hundred and twenty, being salutatorian 
and class orator. 

Retiring to his Cincinnati home, he plunged 
into the law, coming to that naturally, as he had 
to Yale, by heredity and environment; and, also, 
becoming intimate in a family of six girls, much 
given to music and literature, selected one of 
the sisters to be his wife. 

It was a happy day, in the month of roses, 
when he wedded tall, slight Helen Herron, who 
has been his comrade in all his varied career. 
Very interesting, too, has that been, since Presi- 
dent McKinley despatched him on diplomatic 
missions to the other side of the world, and, un- 
der Mr. Roosevelt, he has served as Civil Gov- 
ernor in the Philippines and wrestled with our 
uncertain, suspicious " little- brown brother," 
teaching him what it means to " keep faith " and 
316 



The Household of Taft 

giving him such peace, justice and prosperity as 
he never dreamed of before. 

Veritable little globe trotters, too, are their 
three children, Robert, Helen and Charles, who, 
like their mother, have become quite familiar 
with Europe and Asia, and have acquired a 
smattering of many languages. 

Their more recent home in Washington, 
when their father was Secretary of War, was 
like a museum, with its wealth of curiosities and 
souvenirs from other lands, paintings and speci- 
mens of wood-carving, for in this last, Mrs. 
Taft is quite a connoisseur, and knows all the 
fine points in the work of different schools and 
masters. 

Her husband's step-brother, Mr. Charles 
Taft — the noted art collector of Cincinnati — 
has no more appreciative admirer of his treas- 
ures than his sister-in-law. 

In her native city, too, she was one of the 
founders of a famous musical organization, the 
Symphony Orchestra, and formerly kept up her 
daily hours of practice religiously. Now, how- 
ever, she seldom performs in public, reserving 
her piano-playing for the home circle. 

The eighteen-year-old daughter is even taller 
than her mother and quite as comely and attrac- 
317 



Soys and Girls of the White House 

tive in manner, but the dimple in her chin she 
inherits from her father. When a small child, 
she met with an accident, which resulted in in- 
jury to her back, so she has been obliged to 
wear a brace. Consequently outdoor sports do 
not appeal to her as much as to Ethel Roose- 
velt, although she enjoys an occasional game of 
tennis with her brother Robert and is fond of 
horseback riding, in which she prefers the mas- 
culine fashion. 

" I suppose it will have to be a side-saddle 
in Washington," she says, " although I learned 
to ride with the cross-saddle in the Philippines. 
The other way is much more sensible." 

Studious and a fine scholar, she has, so far, 
shown a greater fancy for books than for teas 
and dances; but when her education was so far 
advanced that college was the only thing remain- 
ing and she had won a $300 scholarship in the 
entrance examinations at Bryn-Mawr, Mrs. 
Taft said: 

" I don't know whether I want Helen to go to 
school longer or not. She likes to study, but so 
many of her girl friends are leaving school and 
taking their places in society, that when she is 
free they will most of them be married or grown 
away from her, and her first social season will 
have lost some of its charm." 
3i8 



The Household of Taft 

Nevertheless, the maiden of " sweet sixteen " 
entered Bryn-Mawr and is captivated with 
college life. Whether the inducement of being 
a White House belle will tempt her away before 
the end of her course remains to be seen, as her 
parents have left it to her to decide. 

At present, the idea of ceremonious receptions 
at the Mansion seem rather distasteful to her. 

" It's ghastly to think of standing in a row 
with lots of other prim people and shaking 
hands with hundreds," she declares. " I like 
fun and hate formality." 

She and her brother Robert Alphonso are 
great chums and she is as proud as he of all the 
prizes he has carried off at Yale. Now in his 
junior year, Bob Taft bids fair to excel both 
father and grandfather, and leave the old alma 
mater as " first man." 

The youngest child, though, is the infant 
prodigy of the family. Named for his art-lov- 
ing uncle, twelve-year-old Charley is something 
of a " holy terror " and, when not absorbed in a 
book, is never still for an instant. 

During last year's campaign, when Mr. Taft 
made his first speech at Hot Springs, his irre- 
pressible hopeful was heard to shout: 

"Come on, boys! pop's going to spout," 
while, at a dramatic point, a sizzling firecracker 
319 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

came flying through the air and landed on the 
speaker's shoulder. But the orator only 
laughed, for well he knew from whence it came. 

At the Force School Charley used to play on 
Quentin Roosevelt's baseball team. One day, 
however, when a game was arranged, he wished 
to attend a picnic and applied to have his con- 
tract cancelled, just like a professional. 

Quentin was annoyed. " You can't go," he 
said. " There is no one to take your place." 

" Well, I have made a date and I have to go 
and that settles it," declared young Taft. 

" If you desert we'll fill your place," retorted 
Quentin, asserting his authority as captain. 

Charley went to the picnic but he played no 
more with the Roosevelt Nine and has since 
turned his attention to golf. 

" You can't get the swing, unless you begin 
young," said Mr. Taft, as he hunted up a 
teacher for his boy and applauded the change 
of games. For the President is a most enthusi- 
astic golfer, doing his "81 " with ease, and 
never more contented than when on the Fair 
Greens chasing the fascinating white pellet. 

Inclined to portliness, the " Big Fellow " 

keeps down his flesh by means of this enjoyable 

exercise and announced immediately after his 

election : "lam going to do my part to make 

320 



The Household of Taft 

golf one of the popular outdoor exercises. A 
man of my build requires exercise in the open 
air and exercise to be beneficial must be enter- 
taining. In golf there is just enough skill re- 
quired to get up a keen interest in the game 
and this takes up your thoughts, while you are 
getting a five or six mile walk." 

It is safe to predict that the Chevy Chase 
Links will be a favorite resort for the presi- 
dential family during the next four years. 

Mrs. Taft often follows her husband around 
the golf course, although she does not play, her 
favorite amusement being a quiet, scientific game 
of bridge whist at home. 

Loving politics even better than the Presi- 
dent, the past year has been to her a most ex- 
citing one, and the month of June, 1908, when 
the Republican Convention met at Chicago, was 
naturally a period of anxiety to both her and 
her children. 

At last, one afternoon, a trim figure in a 
white linen suit .and flower-laden hat, might 
have been seen emerging from a substantial 
brick house on K Street, in Washington and, in 
company with a few friends, go tripping over 
the heated pavements, to the War Department, 
where the door-keeper greeted her with a sym- 
pathetic grin. For well he knew she had come 
321 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

to learn the fate of her candidate, in the Phoenix 
City. In the office of the Secretary of War, 
then, she waited with all the patience she could 
command, until the little telegraph instrument 
ticked off the words : " Taft nominated," when 
congratulations sounded on all sides. 

Meanwhile, within the K Street residence a 
girl was wandering nervously up and down, un- 
able to settle down to anything. It was Miss 
Helen, and afterward, she thus described her 
feelings on the eventful day: 

" Mamma went over early and I intended to 
go down, too, but I was so restless. When I 
tried to read ' Chicago ' danced all over the 
pages. I tried doing my hair different ways, but 
it did no good. About two o'clock I went down 
and, finally the news came and then I am not just 
sure what did happen." 

In November the People ratified the choice 
then made, while the fourth of March, 1909, 
brought to a glad culmination the campaign be- 
gun in June. 

This is the household which has recently taken 
the place of the bunch of Knickerbockers and 
from far and near gathered the Taft clan — - 
twenty-seven of them — ranging in age from 
Miss Delia Torrey, the President's aged aunt 
of eighty-two, down to year-old Baby Ingalls, 
322 



The Household of Taft 

his grand-niece, all eager to see their " big man," 
crowned with the country's choicest gift. 

" It seems good to have an established home," 
remarked genial William Howard, as he entered 
the White House on the eve of his inauguration, 
the guest of the out-going occupant. " For nine 
years I have lived in my hat." 

At the breakfast table next morning, how- 
ever, he said to his host, glancing out at the 
fierce snowstorm then raging: "Mr. Presi- 
dent, even the elements protest. I knew it 
would be a cold day when I became President. 

" Mr. President-elect! " was Roosevelt's quick 
rejoinder, " I knew there would be a blizzard 
clear up to the minute I went out of office." 

A blizzard it was, indeed, and few Chief 
Magistrates have been inaugurated in such a 
storm. The grand parade was seriously marred 
and, for the first time since Jackson, the inau- 
gural address was delivered under a roof. 

Mr. Taft took the oath of office in the Senate 
Chamber, and it might have been termed a 
violet function, so many of the women wore 
that flower, to match their purple gowns. His 
voice was clear, and curiously enough, when he 
kissed the open Bible, his lips rested reverently, 
though quite unintentionally, upon King Solo- 
mon's prayer for wisdom: 
323 



Boys and Girls of the White House 

" Give, therefore, Thy servant an understand- 
ing heart to judge Thy people, that I may dis- 
cern between good and bad; for who is able to 
judge Thy so great people." 

Setting an entirely fresh precedent, Mrs. Taft 
rode back from the Capitol in the same car- 
riage with the newly-made President and Vice- 
President, entering the White House as its mis- 
tress just one hundred years from the time win- 
some Dolly Madison began her ever-remem- 
bered and captivating reign there. 

" Good-bye, Teddy ! " chorused the crowd, as 
the ex-ruler boarded the train for New York 
and, declaring he had had " a bully time as Pres- 
ident," Theodore Roosevelt gaily passed out of 
office, for "The King is dead; long live the 
King ! " and all over the land a funny little 
" Billy " Possom is endeavoring to drive 
" Teddy Bear " from the arms and affections of 
Young America. 

At eventide, some rays of light struggled 
through the clouds and the grand inaugural ball 
at night was far more of a success than the day 
had been. 

The first lady's empire robe was richly em- 
broidered with goldenrod, which so many have 
thought should be our national flower; while 
324 



The Household of Taft 

Miss Helen danced In a pretty girlish gown of 
white mousseline de soie, relieved by blue rib- 
bons. 

Meanwhile, outside, Pennsylvania Avenue 
was turned into a " Great White Way," with 
miles of illuminations, and wonderful pyrotech- 
nics delighted the populace. 

The Taft boys, too, attracted their share of 
attention, but, as this story of a Century of 
White House life goes to press, the historic 
Mansion is quiet enough, Helen and Robert hav- 
ing returned to college and the youngest being 
away at his uncle's school in Connecticut. 

" Charles is to go to Yale University, and 
Robert to the Harvard Law School as soon as 
he is graduated," confided their mother to an 
interviewer, " for, like his father, he will make 
law his profession." 

" I suppose," she added laughingly, " Char- 
ley will be a lawyer, too; there is so much law 
in the family that he will come naturally by it." 

Only at holiday time, then, can the sons of 
the household be much in Washington, but, ere 
long, brown-eyed Helen Taft will take her place 
as the Daughter of the National Homestead, 
enjoying her first social season and dreaming her 
girlish dreams in the same old rooms as high- 
bred Maria Monroe, willful Hortensia Hay, 
325 



Boys and Girls of the White Hous e 

charming Harriet Lane, the merry Randolphs, 
Anna Payne and blithe Nellie Grant. Perhaps 
she may pore over the same volumes as brainy 
Mary Fillmore and, like fair, saucy Alice Tyler, 
she will certainly worship at old St. John's, 
where she was confirmed a few years ago, in the 
same class with Ethel Roosevelt. Thither, her 
mother will accompany her, but not so her 
father, as our twenty-seventh President comes of 
a long line of Unitarians and is a member of All 
Souls' Church. 

The roguish faces of Archie and Quentin 
will be missed but, when at home, young Char- 
ley will largely fill their place, as he frolics and 
plays his elfish pranks in the spacious grounds 
and long corridors where have romped the 
bright Hayes and Garfield children, the little 
Pattersons and Stovers, mischievous Tad Lin- 
coln and his brother Willie, Nellie Arthur, 
" Baby McKee " and many other boys and girls 
of the White House. 



326 










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